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HIDDEN HEARTa film by Werner Schweizer and Cristina Karrera co-production of LICHTBLICK FILM with Dschoint Ventschr & Big World Cinema, Kapstadt in co-production with SFDRS, WDR and BR in collaboration with Filmstiftung NRW, BAK Distributer: Real Fiction World Sales: Wide Management Entreprise 35mm/HD / 97 minutes/ Dolby Digital / color SYNOPSIS December 3rd, 1967 - a night that changed the world. The first human heart has been successfully transplanted in Cape Town, South Africa. The Heart surgeon Christian Barnard (1922-2001) shot overnight to fame as no other doctor before or thereafter. Christian Barnard performed the first human heart transplantation in a country where racial segregation was entrenched as nowhere else in the world. Unsurprisingly, the team, which Barnard presented to the international press, was entirely white. Post Apartheid, 2003 - a black man called Hamilton Naki unexpectedly claimed that he was part of the operation team in 1967. Naki asserted in an interview in 2003 with an American TV-station, that he was the one who took the heart out of Denise Darvall’s chest, brought it over to Christian Barnard in the adjoining theatre and then helped Barnard putting it into Washkansky’s chest. Hamilton Naki passed away 2005. All who knew him, regardless of their racial or social backgrounds, hold him in high esteem. He was an honest worker, a very talented surgeon, modest and hard working. Indeed, Hamilton Naki, had been working in the animal laboratory, where Barnard performed crucial experiments with dog-hearts for the later ground-breaking operation. Hamilton Naki was right at his side. Who actually was the leader there, the source of inspiration? Naki or Barnard? Fact is: Until the end of Apartheid, nobody ever talked about Hamilton Naki. Only afterwards he was ‘discovered’ and – just like Barnard - turned into a celebrity. However, up until Barnard died, Hamilton Naki never claimed in public to have been part of the team in the night of December 3rd 1967. He only did that afterwards. Why? What happened all those years while he was working in the animal lab, being paid the salary of a gardener, being regarded by the whites as an underdog, as somebody coming from a race with limited intelligence? And yet, it was him who worked relentlessly in the animal lab, taught hundreds of junior surgeons and was always in an upbeat mood. He had passion for his work, he had to leave his family thousands of miles behind in order to achieve what he did and lived in a single quarter hostel in one of the townships which were devised by the Apartheid Regime. And yet, despite his enormous contribution and role in the research he wasn’t amongst those who were called to come to join the team for the first human heart transplantation - or was he? TEAM
WORLD PREMIERE 43. Solothurner Filmtage FESTIVALS / AWARDS Nominierung Prix du Public, Solothurner Filmtage Kassel Dokumentarfilmfest PRESS to the presspage |
2012 THE LAST CATCH 2011 THE SUBSTANCE 2010 MY REINCARNATION 2010 DAVID WANTS TO FLY 2010 I SHOT MY LOVE 2009 FIGHT.OVER 2008 QI - THE CHINESE ART OF HEALING 2007 HIDDEN HEART 2007 THE CHAMPAGNE SPY 2006 BLOODY SUNDAY - A DERRY DIARY 2006 HUNT THE KAISER’S CRUISERS 2004 THE FLAMENCO CLAN 2004 MASSAKER 2004 FACING THE DEAD 2002 MY FATHER, HIS FAMILY AND ME 2002 MORO NO BRASIL 2001 TALE OF THE WHITE WHALE 2000 OUT OF TIBET 1996 THE BIG PINK 1995 THE FINAL KICK |
