When a film about a child tortured in a corrupt foster care system was shown to teenage survivors of similar abuse and neglect, its British producer feared the subject could prove too traumatic for them to watch.
But Peter Samuelson was moved when they told him afterwards that the film had given them a voice and that some of those who had observed its filming on set had been inspired to pursue careers in the film industry.
The film, Foster Boy, is a story of race and prejudice in which a white corporate lawyer represents a black teenager who was subjected to sexual and physical abuse while in the foster care system.
It is based on the true stories of four foster children represented by Jay Paul Deratany, a Chicago lawyer and advocate for human rights, who has made his film-making debut in writing this screenplay.
Now out on Sky, it is the latest film from Samuelson, whose previous productions include Tom & Viv, a drama about TS Eliot starring Willem Dafoe and Miranda Richardson, and Wilde, with Stephen Fry as Oscar Wilde.
In Foster Boy, Matthew Modine depicts a fictional lawyer who is forced to confront his own prejudices in taking on a for-profit foster care agency that put a known sex offender into the same foster home as his teenage client, played by Shane Paul McGhie.
Samuelson recalled attending a screening of Foster Boy for teenagers in care. They gave it a standing ovation, he said, and when he asked them why, they told him: “Because we felt heard.”
He said the foster care sector was “shrouded in secrecy” in an understandable attempt to protect children, but it also meant those children had no voice. “When you’re young and you feel that no one’s listening to you, you feel as though you have no importance and no one cares what you say. It may be for good motives to keep it all secret, but it’s not good for the self-esteem of the kids. The film is like their mouthpiece.”
Samuelson has founded three children’s charities, one with his fellow film-maker Steven Spielberg that has raised more than $1bn.
The charities include First Star, based in the UK and US, which partners with universities and social services to help give looked-after young people academic and life skills through innovative programmes – vital support since so many foster children have experienced significant trauma.
While the charity says “an overwhelming majority of the 94,000 young people in the UK in care face dreadful outcomes as care leavers”, with 25% experiencing homelessness within the first two years of independence, its programmes employ university undergraduates as role models.
Noting that only 6% of foster children enter university in the UK, Samuelson said: “If you surround looked-after children with excellence, ambition and high-achieving young people who are going places, that’s what you get back from the ones that you are housing, educating and encouraging.”
He added: “When they come in to us aged 14, half of them don’t know how to brush their teeth properly. We have to teach them. It’s about encouragement. Kids begin to think this is their family.”
He gave 120 foster children the chance to go on the film set, telling them: “If you’re interested in videography, stand by the camera. If you’re interested in makeup and hair, go over to that trailer. If you’re interested in acting, stand next to Shane. We really tried to stir up career possibilities. We showed them the rough cut and the fine cut and took notes from what they said.”
One child now planning to pursue a film career described Foster Boy as “an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life”. Another said: “Foster Boy shows that you don’t have to hide who you are.”
Deratany, who grew up in a tough area of Detroit, met Samuelson after attending a lecture the Briton had delivered on screenwriting at the University of California. They got talking afterwards about his legal cases involving foster children and he responded immediately to Samuelson’s casual remark that he should write a screenplay.
Initially Samuelson’s heart sank when he received it. “When somebody you just met sends you a script, they’re always terrible. But I read it and thought: this is absolutely fantastic.” To his astonishment, the debut screenwriter had even raised $4m towards the production costs.
The film was made in 2019 and has been shown in festivals, but has just been screened by Sky. Samuelson is making it freely accessible to charitable organisations. “This is an anthem for looked-after children,” he said.
Deratany added: “I had a young girl, 15 or 16, who came up to me after a screening, tears in her eyes, saying: ‘Thank you for doing this, for telling the story. Nobody’s ever understood my story.’ She’d been in the foster care system and had some very bad foster experiences … That’s what motivates me.”