BPS 189: I Sold My Eggs To Finance My Feature Film With Sonja O’Hara

Today on the show we have writer, actor and director Sonja O'Hara.
You might recognize here from my feature film On the Corner of Ego
and Desire where she played an insane director at Sundance.

Sonja O’Hara is an Emmy-nominated queer writer, director and actor
represented by WME and Management 360. She was chosen as one of the
“10 Filmmakers To Watch” by Independent Magazine, selected by a
jury from MovieMaker Magazine, the Sundance Institute and Austin
Film Festival. (Past recipients include Barry Jenkins of
MOONLIGHT.)

Sonja just directed two back to back features which are currently
completing post-production: MID-CENTURY, a provocative thriller
starring Stephan Lang (DON'T BREATHE) and two time Academy Award
nominee Bruce Dern, produced by Jeremy Walton (THE INVENTOR with
Marion Cotillard), and ROOT LETTER, an adaptation of the popular
Japanese PlayStation game, written by Tribeca Film Festival
Narrative Prize winner David Ebeltoft and starring Danny Ramirez of
THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER.

Sonja also created and directed the Webby award winning series
DOOMSDAY which was nominated for the 2021 Daytime Emmy Awards. For
DOOMSDAY, she was awarded the “Best Director” prize out of 4000
submissions at The New York Television Festival. Sonja sold her
original series ASTRAL to Adaptive Studios.

I wanted to have her on the show to discuss not only her directing
career but also wanted to discuss her remarkable story on how she
financed DOOMSDAY...she sold her eggs! This is easily the most
unique film financing method I'd ever heard of. She made a film
about her experience called Ovum.

An offbeat young actress who will do anything for a part, ends up
giving up a part of herself when her method acting exercise goes
too far and she ends up selling her eggs.

Enjoy my conversation with the remarkable filmmaker Sonja
O'Hara.

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