It was Slovakia's official Best Foreign Language Film submission at the 72nd Academy Awards, but did not manage to receive a nomination.
After initial denial about the looming danger, the family is unable to find a way out of the country upon realizing the reality of the imminent Nazi threat.
An uncle in the family meets Nicholas Winton, the (real life) British humanitarian who, just before the start of the Second World War, organized the rescue of several hundred Jewish children from German-occupied Czechoslovakia and likely death in the Holocaust.
The storyline focuses heavily on Silberstein family members, with Nicholas Winton (portrayed by Rupert Graves) appearing briefly in key scenes near the end of the film.
For further inspiration, he visited Prague's Jewish Museum and read Vera Gissing's Pearls of My Childhood, which briefly mentioned Nicholas Winton rescuing hundreds of children before the war.