The release of My Feral Heart could hardly have come at a better time. Perhaps the most disabled people are those who fear the sacrifice of caring for others. It turns the discourse about disability on its head. But My Feral Heart is understated and unsentimental. “I like animals,” says Luke.Ī film about a character with Down syndrome could easily become condescending. “My nan used to say we come back as animals,” she responds when Luke asks what happens after we die. The brief funeral for Luke’s mother in a chilly English country church with only him and Eve in the congregation is almost comical in its bleakness. My Feral Heart is thoroughly secular in its outlook. Is this a religious sentiment? Not really. But the universal cure is self-giving and generosity. Each of us is disabled and needy, just in different ways: some intellectually, others emotionally and socially. And the centre of Luke’s life becomes a mysterious waif of a girl whom he can nurse and protect.ĭisability, then, is nothing to be feared, hidden away or ashamed of. Like Luke, Pete has to cope with death and loss and finds a kind of redemption in looking after his very different friend. And one of the gardeners, Pete (Will Rastall), befriends him and keeps Luke’s tramps across the stubbled autumn fields a secret.Īt the heart of the film are two intertwining themes: that we can only find happiness in caring for each other and that all of us are vulnerable and needy, not just people with Down syndrome. But a warm-hearted carer, Eve (Shana Swash), coaxes him out of his shell. Still grieving for his Mum and dismayed by his new surroundings, Luke is deeply unhappy. But when she dies in her sleep, he is forced to enter the semi-bedlam of a care home with other disabled people. He feeds her, bathes her, tucks her into bed, and entertains her. Luke, played brilliantly by Steven Brandon, has become his frail and elderly mother’s carer. Though filmed in a grey and overcast English village and a grey and overcast and damp English countryside and the slightly chaotic life of a care home, it projects a rare warmth of feeling. “We’re not so different, you and me” is the theme of My Feral Heart, a poignant British indie about a young man with Down syndrome. The main source of income for The Fetal Medicine Foundation is The Fetal Medicine Centre.Starring Steven Brandon, Shana Swash, Will Rastall, Pixie Le Knot
Further information is available in the Trust’s Annual Accounts. In 2016/2017, the Fetal Medicine Foundation made a donation of £22 million to King’s College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for investment in the Trust's Fetal Medicine services.
#Feral Heart series
The Foundation, with the support of an international group of experts, has introduced an educational programme both for healthcare professionals and parents and a series of certificates of competence in different aspects of fetal medicine. The Fetal Medicine Foundation is a Registered Charity that aims to improve the health of pregnant women and their babies through research and training in fetal medicine.