Boosting Our Economy - Celebrating Our Culture - Enhancing Our Children's Education

Boosting Our Economy - Celebrating Our Culture - Enhancing Our Children's Education

The Windermere Children

Additional Information

Shoot Dates 6th May - 2nd June 2019
Writer Simon Block
Director Michael Samuels
Producer Alison Stirling
Director of Photography Wojciech Szepel
Editor Victoria Boydell
Main Cast Thomas Kretschmann, Romola Garai, Anna Maciejewska
Locations Glenarm Village, Belvoir Forest Park and Finnebrogue Forest.

The Windermere Children

Status: Completed

One summer’s night in 1945 a coach-load of children, some as young as three years old, are in transit from Carlisle airport to the Calgarth Estate in Lake Windermere, England. They are child survivors, and presumed orphans, of the Holocaust.

With only a few meagre possessions, they do not know what awaits them in Britain. They speak no English and, having spent many years living in death camps, and are deeply traumatised.

At the end of World War II, the British government granted up to 1,000 children the right to come to the UK. Three hundred of these children were brought to Lake Windermere for their first four months to have the opportunity to recover, surrounded by nature.

The responsibility for looking after the children is held by Oscar Friedmann (Thomas Kretschmann – The Pianist), a German-born child social worker and psychoanalyst. He and his team are in uncharted territory: their project to mass-rehabilitate a group of children has never been attempted before.

The Children (w/t) is the stark, moving and ultimately redemptive story of the bonds these children make with one another, and of how the friendships forged at Windermere become a lifeline to a fruitful future.

Written by Bafta Award-nominated screenwriter Simon Block (The Eichmann Show), the story draws on the first-person testimony of some of these now elderly survivors, whose filmed interviews will feature in the film.

More Information

© 2024 Northern Ireland Screen. All Rights Reserved