Anthony Onah: "Stolen Dreams" winner

Born in Nigeria and raised in the Philippines, trained as a biochemist and neuroscientist at Harvard (where he graduated with honors), now a second-year MFA candidate at UCLA — Anthony Onah looked like an over-achiever well before the gratifying announcement of October 23rd, when his short film "The Cure" was named the winner of the Stolen Dreams competition and presented with the $7,500 grand prize.

The announcement was the culmination of an innovative collaboration between AARP and the School of Theater Film and Television, a jointly sponsored competition in which students were challenged to put into relatable human terms the timely but often huge and daunting issues of the high cost of health care and its impact on the financial security of families.

The competition was judged by a panel of award-winning writer/director/producers Steven Bochco, Curtis Hanson and Reggie Hudlin (all three are also members of the School's Executive Board), along with AARP's executive vice president and chief brand officer Emilio Pardo. The judges considered the work of four finalists selected from submissions by UCLA graduate students.

Written and directed by Onah, produced by Miqi Huang and May Lugemwa and photographed by Akis Konstantakopoulos, "The Cure" focuses on a single mother whose young son is severely injured in an accident while she is at work. Her doctor and a hospital administrator are sympathetic, but the reality of the situation is stark: without insurance this attentive young mother will not be able to afford the operation needed to restore her son's vision.

Writer-director Hanson, whose credits included the Oscar-winning "L.A. Confidential" as well as "8 Mile" and "Wonder Boys," suggested later that while all the films were impressively crafted and obviously heartfelt, "The Cure" stood out because Onah has come up with a story with the simplicity of a fable that encapsulated the central human dilemma at the heart of the health care crisis: a potentially life-altering injury that is entirely curable if only the money can be found to pay for the procedure.

Hudlin, BET's first president of entertainment, executive producer of "The Boondocks" and writer/director of the Sundance Film Festival Filmmakers Trophy winner and Grand Jury Prize nominee "House Party," stressed the emotional impact of the prize winning film: "When you state the issue as effectively as this film does, in terms of a parent's feelings for a child, the power of that is overwhelming."

Television pioneer Bochco, writer-producer of the landmark series "Hill Street Blues," “NYPD Blue" and the current TNT hit "Raising the Bar," had given an interview earlier in the week describing his powerful reaction to the premise of the competition:

“I think it’s a great idea. It’s so relevant,” declares Bochco .... He points out that media stories detailing medical insurance nightmares are widespread these days, including a current L.A. Times series that told of a young woman with a baby girl that had a mis-aligned hip, and Blue Shield denied her coverage because of this minor birth defect. Says Bochco, “It seems so crudely inappropriate, so wrong, so immoral. And yet, this kind of thing happens all the time.

...

“With my bias as a storyteller, the key, I think I’ll be looking closely at, is to tell a story first and foremost that’s compelling. To tell a story that asks a really provocative question — which I always find more dramatically satisfying than answering the question. When you start to answer the question, you start to proselytize, and proselytizing is the enemy of good storytelling.”

As AARP's Emilio Pardo noted during the Stolen Dreams presentation ceremony, it was his goal in sponsoring the competition to harness the "power of storytelling to be a pebble dropped into water, that can send out ripples that spread and spread, and make a difference."

Onah's film will also be used this fall as part of AARP's hard-hitting national initiative "Divided We Fail," advocating health care and health insurance reform.

"It is amazing how effective these students were at capturing the urgency and complexity of the two most pressing domestic issues facing our nation; financial security and health care," said Pardo. "Divided We Fail's messages of hope and bi-partisanship have resonated with millions of Americans and these films illustrate the extent to which these issues transcend generations and impact all Americans. "The Cure" and the other submissions will be used to engage millions more as we look to the election and beyond."

The other three finalist films in competition were:

• "After the Shearing," written and directed by Vanessa Rojas, and produced by Camelia Adibi and Pauline Chu, which spotlights a girl and her family's battle to care for their cancer-stricken mother while they lose everything
• "Side Effects," written, directed and produced by Olivia Silver, which introduces Henry, a senior citizen whose strange behavior after his dog dies makes his wife suspect he's had a stroke
• "Sneeze," written and directed by Xavier Tatarkiewicz and produced by Amy Adrion and Vanessa Knutsen, which offers a glimpse at the rapid and pervasive ways in which the flu virus is passed on from one unsuspecting stranger to another throughout a city

Anthony Onah, meanwhile, is looking ahead, with this award as a jumping off point. A recipient of the Four Sisters Fellowship and the Motion Picture Association of America Award, he is already in pre-production for his next film (about deaths in U.S. immigration detention centers) and he has a feature project in the works. Rest assured, we will be hearing from him again.

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