Barnard film to focus on first transplant

THE man who mended broken hearts is the subject of a new movie.

South African doctor Professor Chris Barnard performed the world’s first heart transplant operation in December 1967.

In a heartbeat‚ the future of modern medicine was inexorably altered.

Now a film, which will feature an internationally recognised South African actor as Barnard, will mark the 50th anniversary of what has been called the greatest medical achievement of the 20th century.

Head of the cardiothoracic surgery department at Groote Schuur Hospital at the time‚ Barnard performed the pioneering operation on 53-year-old Sea Point businessman Louis Washkansky.

Washkansky died 18 days later but Barnard’s medical triumph turned him into an international superstar.

Barnard’s personal life became the stuff of legends. He flirted with movie stars and princesses‚ engaged with politicians and popes and‚ after divorcing his first wife‚ went on to marry twice more‚ each time to a glamorous and ever younger woman.

The film focuses on the period around the first human-to-human heart transplant.

Producer Robert dos Santos said the project had been in development for the last four years.

Dos Santos said Barnard was a rebel. “He went up against the powers that be to engage black staff and he was criticised for transplanting organs from non-whites into white patients saying that ‘we are all red on the inside’.”

The South African-owned international production company, Karoo Films, will be shooting on location in and around Cape Town.

It has not yet been decided who will play the part of the famous professor but Dos Santos said they were looking for an internationally recognised South African.