“A Stunning Story… Compelling, Entertaining”

Rick Kogan Chicago Tribune

“Fabulous, a story with a moral purpose. Powerful performances from Jamelle Sargent as the young Tom and Eva Doueiri as the young Sarah.” 

Tony Moore Indy Film Library

Now on national release Old Heart honors our veterans during the 80th anniversary celebration of World War 2 European Liberation. The film has just won best feature awards at the Marina del Rey Festival in Los Angeles, the Edukino Festival in Polan, the Crown Point Festival in Chicago and the East Village Festival in New York.

Watch the latest the trailer here.

A list of upcoming screenings is here.

Here is what the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame has to say about the film:
"The actors did very solid work in this film. It’s touching to watch a bunch of people come together to do something big and to witness their solidarity and utter belief in doing something great. This film was able to utilize a high-end Hollywood studio for post-production. This showed in the quality of the sound and stunning visuals. That kind of resourcefulness, along with pure passion, allows (this) small-budget project to overcome its disadvantages. This feature-length film becomes part of Peter Ferry's legacy. It’s a fine piece of work to leave behind. "

The film has screened before over 140 audiences across America, the Netherlands and Poland. The movie opens soon in Amstedam, the Netherlands and many more cities across the United States.

Recent festival awards for cast and the production team include:
Best Editor (Gene Gamache) Crown Point Festival

Best Actress Eva Doueiri (Sweden Film Awards, Crown Point Festival) 

Best Actor Edward Gaines (Berlin Kiez Festival, Mkizhmithran International Film Festival, Golden Bridge Istanbul Festival) 

Best Composer (Garth Neustadter) Auguri Film Festival, Naples, Sicilian Film Awards, Los Angeles Stars Festival)

Best Director (Kirk Wahamaki and Leslye Witt,

Lead actor Edward Gaines talks about Old Heart talks about his own story behind the film here. Co-Lead Zaneta Adams, formerly director of the Michigan Department of Veterans Affairs who also worked at the VA in Washington during the Biden Administration tells more about the story behind the film here.

Adapted from Peter Ferry’s award winning novel, Old Heart tells the story of Tom Johnson, an American soldier who is part of the Allied liberation of the Southern Netherlands in the fall of 1944. He works with Jewish translator, Sarah van Praag, to smuggle food and supplies to starving residents of northern cities trapped behind Nazi lines. They also fall in love.

Sixty years later, in the summer of 2005, Tom foils his family’s plan to move him to an assisted living facility by taking a flight to the Netherlands. He is determined to find Sarah again, the love of his life. 

Old Heart will screen at theaters, museums, festivals, universities, performing arts centers, libraries and conference across the United States and many Dutch cities.

The Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944-45, is central to this screenplay which has won seven best feature film awards at festivals in America and abroad. This movie is the Michigan production team’s fourth release, building on the successes of Waterwalk, Pilot Error and Coming Up For Air which have won a dozen best feature awards at international festivals.

Where We’ve Played.

Old Heart has screened for 140 audiences from Los Angeles to Brooklyn as well as the Netherlands.

Since its May Redford Theater premiere in Detroit, Old Heart has screened at the Park Slope Public Library Brooklyn New York, Berkeley California’s Hillside Club, the Culver Theate in Culver City, Kan Kan Cinema in Indianapolis, Chicago's Chopin Theater. In Europe Old Heart has played Kijkhuis Leiden, Theater De Schalm in Veldhoven and the Biesbosch Eiland Museum. In Poland the film screened at the Ministry of Culture in Jozefow near Warsaw.

In addition to two week theatrical runs with Celebration Cinema in Norton Shores, Grand Rapids, Lansing and Kalamazoo, the film has played across Michigan at the State Theater in South Haven, the Garden Theater in Frankfort, the Dogwood Center in Fremont, the Ludington Arts Center, Hope College’s Stempien Auditiorium in Holland and the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, NCG Theater in Coldwar and Mona Shores High School in Norton Shores.

For inquires about booking the film for an event or showing, please contact Producer Roger Rapoport at rogerdrapoport@me.com (231) 720-0930 (v0ice only).

Here is what the Indy Film Library Festival in Amsterdam has to say about the film:

Fabulous … A Compelling Narrative, Very Much a Movie of Our Time

Old Heart is the third iteration of a work of art. The film is based on a stage adaptation of a novel of the same name by the American writer Peter Ferry. The directors of the stage play, Kirk Wahamaki and Leslye Witt, co-directed the movie.  

The directors give us the story of Tom Johnson, a retired teacher from Detroit. As the movie opens, Tom, an eighty-five-year-old widower, is about to leave the family home and move into assisted living accommodation arranged by his children. The year is 2005. Tom then does something extraordinary – he takes a taxi, gets on a plane to Amsterdam then boards a train to a small town in the Netherlands. 

As the narrative develops, we learn the reasoning behind Tom’s adventure. Tom, a black American, as a teenager in the US army, was part of the only desegregated unit in the US forces in World War II – the Red Ball Express. Tom was a driver in the unit which was charged with supplying the US troops invading the Nazi occupied Netherlands and getting in food to the starving civilian population. Tom met and fell in love with Sarah, a local woman.

Sarah, who was Jewish had been hidden on a farm throughout the Nazi terror, worked as Tom’s translator and undertook dangerous missions getting supplies to civilians behind the retreating Germans’ lines. For reasons, only brought to light later in the movie, Tom lost touch with Sarah – went back to the US, got married and started a family. First love lost. We gradually realise the purpose of Tom’s journey – it is a quixotic quest to find Sarah. 

Tom settles down to small town Dutch life. He rents a room. He makes friends with a Canadian WWII veteran. He engages a lawyer to help him in his search for Sarah. He becomes so enamoured of life in the Netherlands that he applies for residency – a move that is vehemently opposed by his children back in the US. As for how the search for Sarah went and whether Tom stayed in Europe, the filmmakers provide the answers in a compelling narrative which I found moving and, crucially, believable.

Tom’s story is in the original sense of the word – fabulous. Wahamaki and Witt have filmed a fable – a story with a moral purpose. The metanarrative we are asked to consider has two edges. The agency of older people – their ability to make their own decisions on how to live their lives. The historic racism within US society that led the state to wage World War II with armed forces segregated according to race. 

The filmmakers do not overreach themselves – we just have close up conversational situations with only Tom and Sarah present. Here, Wahamaki and Witt are helped by powerful performances from Jamelle Sargent as the young Tom and Eva Doueiri as the young Sarah. As a narrative device, the interchange between past and present works excellently – we come to understand the tragic circumstances that took Tom away from Sarah. Equally fine in terms of exposition is Tom’s interactions in the present – again this is aided by a strong performance by Edward Gaines as the older Tom. Here, two narrative devices work particularly well. Tom’s visits to see the lawyer delineate the question of older people’s power over decision making efficiently. Tom also sets up a series of chess games in a park with his new- found friend – the Canadian vet. In leisurely conversation over the chess moves, Tom outlines to the vet, and to us the audience, the issues around racism that he encountered in his wartime experience – a wonderful piece of cinema. 

I must mention the quality of the screenplay by Roger Rapoport. I would rate the work highly – a fine job in imparting such a vast amount of information without coming across as overly didactic whilst moving the plot development along deftly. …

Old Heart looks good. The cinematography led by David Darling is excellent. The editing by Gene Gamache is first class – the temporal transition from the colour of the present to the monochrome of the past is seamless. There is a subtle and rather beautiful moment near the climax of the movie where for a single frame we see the young Tom and the young Sarah when the convention changes and we see them in full colour – very well achieved….

Old Heart is a worthy effort – very much a movie of our times. I took it as a liberal American attempt to connect the present to a heroic past where moral decisions were as – in the recreated footage – black and white. All the while, mediated by a saintly, all-American hero…. 

Just before the final credits roll, there is a dedication of the film to all those who lost their lives in the Netherlands during the Hitler tyranny. The moment brought tears to my eyes. The figures are astounding – the number of civilians who died of starvation was staggering. The script stays the same but the location changes. 

Wahamaki and Witt are part of what seems to be a vibrant artistic community up in Michigan. I hope they continue to make movies and that the community continues to thrive….

-Tony Moore, Indy Film Library August 4, 2025 (indyfilmlibrary.com)