OLD HEART
A new movie adapted from Peter Ferry’s acclaimed novel — out now!
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“Fabulous … Old Heart is a Worthy Effort - Very Much a Movie of Our Time” - Indy Film Library
Best Feature From An Adapted Screenplay Marina Del Rey Film Festival Los Angeles
Six Best Screenplay Awards at International Film Festivals
Best Actress (Eva Doueiri) and Best Editor (Gene Gamache) at Sweden Film Awards
Old Heart plays exclusively in theaters across America and in the Netherlands for the 80th Anniverary of World War 2 European Liberation.
Recent Reviews, Interviews and Commentary
Rick Kogan: Author Peter Ferry is back, as his novel 'Old Heart' becomes a movie. - Chicago Tribune.
Indy Film Library Amsterdam Festival Review by Tony Moore
Peter Ferry's Old Heart Is Now A Movie- Chicago Literary Hall of Fame
Take Your Daughter To Work Day with Old Heart's Eva Doueiri-WGVU/NPR
Filmmaker Turns Novel Into Movie - The Lakeshore
A Tribute To Elder Independence At Kan Kan Cinema- Nuvo.net Indianapolis
Peter Ferry’s award-winning novel Old Heart (Unbridled Books, 978-1-60953-117-1), has garnered a steadily widening readership since its first appearance in 2015. Dave Eggers called the book “astonishing.” The Chicago Tribune says the novel “will stay with you for keeps.” And Publishers Weekly asserts the novel is “life-affirming.”
Peter Ferry died in Indianapolis in September 2024 just days after Old Heart production began close to his beloved family home in South Haven, Michigan.
Here is a tribute to Peter from the Chicago Tribune’s Rick Kogan.
Why I Wrote Old Heart by Peter Ferry appeared in Nu? Detroit.
Old Heart Director’s Statement from Kirk Wahamaki and Leslye Witt
At its heart, Old Heart is a film about memory—how it lingers, shapes us, and sometimes calls us back to unfinished stories. When we first encountered Tom Johnson’s journey, we were deeply moved by its quiet urgency: an 85-year-old man defying age, expectation, and even his own family, all in pursuit of a long-lost love. But this is not just a story of romance. It is a meditation on agency, on love that endures, and on the deeply human need to reclaim one’s own narrative—even in life’s final chapters.
Directing this historic love story about a mixed-race couple and the injustices they faced has been a personal and educational journey. It allowed us to explore not only the intimate emotional realm of forbidden love, but also the enduring legacies of racism, war, and generational silence. Tom’s relationship with Sarah van Praag—rooted in resistance, courage, and deep affection—offered a lens into a history too often marginalized or sanitized. Their bond challenges the systems that tried to keep them apart, and honors the real-life couples who dared to love in the shadows of a hostile world.
Old Heart weaves between the war-torn streets of 1940s Netherlands and the reflective, uncertain days of 2005, revealing how the past is never truly past. The interplay of time—of flashbacks and awakenings, memory and present urgency—was central to how we approached the storytelling. We wanted viewers to feel the echoes of history not as distant artifacts, but as living, breathing parts of who we are. We took great care in every detail to reflect both the intimacy of a couple’s connection and the weight of the world they carried.
This film is also a challenge to the way we frame aging. We often sideline the elderly in cinema, forgetting their stories, their passions, their unresolved longings. Tom’s defiance, and his granddaughter Nora’s evolving understanding, invite us to consider that it is never too late to seek forgiveness, closure, or even a new beginning.
Old Heart is not a history wrapped in sentimentality, nor a love story dulled by idealism. It is a testament to the cost of loving against the grain—and the beauty of doing so anyway. Our hope is that audiences leave not only moved by Tom and Sarah’s story, but changed by it. Because history lives in us. And love—when chosen with courage—can still reimagine the future.
Photos of the production for press and promotion
Please feel free to download and use any of these promotional photos
(credit Roger Rapoport)
The Play
“Thoroughly enjoyed the play, Melanie Lamrock ws outstanding.”
—Peter Bhatia, Editor-in-chief, Detroit Free Press.
Old Heart, was staged at Detroit’s Redford Theater in May 2022 where it was directed by Karl King. Kirk Wahamaki and LeslyeWitt directed the play at Muskegon Community College’s Overbrook Theater in May 2023. Adapted from Peter Ferry’s award-winning novel, Old Heart is an inspiring mixed race love story that illuminates the courage of two young people fighting to save lives in a divided country at the war’s end.”
The Novel
Peter Ferry’s award-winning novel Old Heart (Unbridled Books, 978-1-60953-117-1), has garnered a steadily widening readership since its first appearance in 2015. Dave Eggers called the book “astonishing.” The Chicago Tribune says the novel “will stay with you for keeps.” And Publishers Weekly asserts the novel is “life-affirming.”
The story
Old Heart tells the story of African American GI Tom Johnson who joins forces with 24-year-old Sarah van Praag and the Dutch resistance to smuggle food and supplies from the liberated south across Nazi lines to starving cities in the northern Netherlands. Their brief love affair collapses at the war’s end, and sixty years later Johnson, about to be sent off to assisted living by his family, disappears on a flight to Amsterdam. While his children desperately try to locate him, Johnson is determined to track down Sarah.