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The Healers

When a divorced young father drags his son into his failing healing business, a miracle happens.

synopsis

Max (30), a lovable rogue who struggles to get by as an alternative healer, manages to mess up most things in his life, but is determined not to mess up one - being a father. When his ex-partner Azra (30) moves in with Lana (33), who seems to be everything Max wasn’t, he realises that he might soon be completely pushed out of his own family. The next time he picks Val (10) up, he takes him to see a sickly old man, who is to be his first customer. This is Val’s premature initiation into the family business, which is happening against his mother’s will. Val’s healing touch proves to be miraculous. A few days later, the patient walks without crutches for the first time in 15 years. The word spreads like wildfire, and Val is quickly sucked into a world of ailing bodies and ever- growing responsibility. He would do anything to make his father happy, even if it means silencing his own feelings. While Max, overjoyed that Val is following in his footsteps, fails to acknowledge what being the miracle boy is doing to his son. For a brief time, it seems that anything is possible. Until one day, one of Val’s patients passes away... When it might just be too late, Max realises what has been staring him in the face the whole time. Maybe the only way to keep his son is to let him go.

Director’statement

My co-writer Atila and I started writing The Healers as we both hit rock bottom due to different reasons in our late twenties and returned to our childhood memories. What brought us together were, to a large extent, our fathers, more specifically their sometimes-eerie similarities. Both are somewhat oddball working class characters and were the most dominant figures as we were growing up. These memories were leading us to two types of feelings - those of guilt and those of responsibility. It was all about how much our fathers wanted us to be proud of them, and in turn how much we want them to be proud of us. As a director, I am trying to capture the father-son relationship as I know it in all its complexity. As it is, in Its hardships and its beauty, a relationship with a surplus of love and care that more often than not struggles to find its proper language. It is my attempt to point a tender eye towards manhood in contemporary capitalist reality.

TFL PROGRAMME:
ScriptLab 2024

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