Deep In My Heart (1999) (DVD)

She must face the future, heal the past and find that place in her heart called home. A trio of great actresses - Oscar-winner Anne Bancroft (The Elephant Man, The Graduate), Emmy Award-winner Lynn Whitfield (Stepmom) and Gloria Reuben (who received multiple Emmy Award nominations for her performance as Jeanie Boulet in TV's ER) - unite their talents for this powerful true story of one woman's search, against all the odds, for her emotional roots. Deep In My Heart starts in Boston in 1961, an era of very different racial and social attitudes. A white woman, Gerry Cummins (Bancroft, who won an Emmy Award for her performance) is raped by a black man - an attack that leaves her pregnant. The resulting child of mixed race, Barbara Ann (Reuben), now faces a life of confusion, prejudice and isolation. Given up for adoption and initially raised by Corrine Burrell (Whitfield), a loving foster mother in a black neighbourhood, Barbara Ann is suddenly torn from this happy existence and placed with Annalise Jurgenson (Alice Krige, Chariots Of Fire) and her husband, a white middle-class couple. Although Annalise has acted from the best of motives, her stance is hopelessly idealistic and for Barbara Ann it means a world with no friends, no joy and no sense of family. But Barbara Ann survives and grows up to marry a man she loves deeply and to become the mother of five children. Only then does she find the courage to face up to the hidden traumas of her past, meet with the woman who gave birth to her all those years ago - and find that place in her heart called home. Deep In My Heart is written by the award-winning Ronni Kern (Homeless to Harvard, Guinevere) and directed by Anita W. Addison (Sirens).