Filmmaker’s Triumph Over Breast Cancer Has Her Advocating for Mammogram Coverage for Young Women

After typically struggling as a young filmmaker, Sonja O’Hara broke out when she was tabbed in 2022 to direct Mid-Century with Bruce Dern and Stephen Lang. From there, her career responded in warp speed. Among a series of projects, she was set to direct a drama called Theirs, and Harvey Keitel and Rita Moreno filled out the A-list. Unfortunately, the sheer excitement turned into small potatoes. “I found a lump in my breast,” she said. But cut to the end, where the filmmaker is cancer-free from a very dire diagnosis, her amazing recovery isn’t the real point of the story.

“If you’re a woman under 40, and have a lump on your breast, they say it has to be a benign cyst. Statistically, women at this age don’t get cancer,” O’Hara conveyed the rationale to deny a mammogram, and ending the breast cancer runaround she endured is now her cause.

Nonetheless, the numbers dictate where on the list she would land for a screening. “It’s not going to be anything we do with urgency,” O’Hara relayed the news from her doctor’s office.

In short, the back-and-forth stall tactics amounted to “gaslighting.” So O’Hara knew what she had to do and let her film industry experience pave the way. “I started treating the cancer the same way as my career,” she said. “I have to self-produce this treatment or nothing’s going to happen.”

Not an exaggeration because her early pursuit found that the insurance company had Catch-22 down to a science. A mammogram denied, she went for the next best thing. An ultrasound, which was covered, but only if she had a mammogram first.

So she fell back on the industry adage of not taking no for an answer. “I want to have it in my record that I was denied potentially life-saving care, and as soon as I said that, the office told me they would see what we can do.”

The mammogram came through and discovered a mass the size of a lemon. “My doctor called and asked me if I was sitting down,” she remembered.

BI-RADS 5 was the technical term and translated to the highest level of concern for a cancer patient. This put her on to the next phase in the insurance maze. “I googled, what do I have to do to get a team together for cancer,” she recalled.

An oncologist and a breast surgeon had to be found and getting the necessary referral was relatively straightforward. Actual Intervention, on the other hand, was not. “They told me that for many people, it takes 6-8 months to even get surgery on the books,” said O’Hara.

A time frame she could not accept, the normal production schedule fell prey to the persistence that any filmmaker can attest. “I was really proactive, and I was able to get it down within two months,” she said.

Of course, as her world stood on a cliff, Hollywood remained on firm footing, and all the participants are expected to be the same. “Everyone is so afraid if you’re perceived as sick or weak, that you won’t be able to work,” O’Hara lamented.

As a result, her illness had to remain a secret and her ability to produce had to go on unabated. Not so easy a sleight of hand, the director felt haunted throughout the pre-production of Theirs. “I feared if my producers somehow discovered my diagnosis, that I’d become uninsurable and get fired,” she said.

They might also doubt her ability to complete the film. “I felt paralyzed by the unknown,” said O’Hara.

Radiation treatments, which were built around her work schedule, did slow her, so she had to put on a brave and always refreshed face. “OK, I’m going to have extra coffee or sugar-free Red Bull, and I’m going to do all the requirements of my job,” O’Hara resolved.

The physical component of the illness wasn’t the only challenge either. “I had to compartmentalize in a massive way,” said the Nova Scotia native.

Possibly never seeing her 40th birthday, she counted herself lucky for having the outlet as a writer and the daily demands of her career. “The uncertainty would have consumed me,” she explained.

Still, O’Hara dodged a major bullet that her mindset would have been no match for. The patient was charted for a rigorous regimen of chemo known as the Red Devil. So intense, O’Hara said, “They put the nurse in a hazmat suit.”

Production about to start for Theirs, O’Hara faced the prospect of a lasting brain fog that would have been detrimental to her long-term creativity. “I was all set up to get a chemoport put in my chest, and then days before, I found out this incredible surgeon would be coming in and operating,” she said of Dr. Helen Kang.

Radiation it was then, and Theirs suddenly bumped to the fall, the end result came up roses. “I got the blood test back to confirm that my CA 15-3 levels were now completely normal,” she beamed.

On the other side of cancer, O’Hara was able to accept the irony of her journey with a comedic sigh of real relief. Her first movie was called Ovum (2015) and is about the shady world of egg donation clinics. A film she financed by donating eggs three times, and as her doctors would later reveal, the hormone treatment likely caused her cancer. “I could see the headline: Young Filmmaker Sells Her Eggs to Finance Her Movie About a Young Woman Selling Her Eggs To Finance Her Movie,” O’Hara deadpanned.

A Faustian bargain she admits, but the ambition that drove her wasn’t the only cause. Minimizing the risks, she said of the clinics, “They definitely prey on and take advantage of young women.”

That’s definitely one message and so is imploring young women to not see themselves as invincible. Nonetheless, she remains on point.

With the statistics rising, the healthcare and insurance industries must start covering mammogram screenings for young women. “I decided to go public,” said the advocate.

First, she had to tell her agent, lawyer and manager, though. "In case the secret came out,” she revealed, “I had wanted to spare them from having to protect me.”

Incredibly supportive nonetheless, the public sphere still required baby steps. “I felt as if my past illness had left me flawed, ruined somehow,” she lamented, and her manager especially assuaged those fears.

The same goes for her concern that her medical history would scare off the industry. “Anyone who decided not to hire someone who once had cancer would be F-in assholes," O’Hara relayed the advice. “They wouldn’t want to work with people like that.”

Accepting the green light, O’Hara enlisted her publicist (Darren Olcsvary) to spread the word, and she’s grateful that no invoice needs to be submitted. “He’s donated his pay because his wife was a survivor of cancer,” O’Hara clarified.

For better or worse, the message is inherent. “Breast cancer has touched so many of us,” she said. “We can make it so young women are able to get access to mammograms, and it will save lives.”

Back on track and pre-production finished, Theirs is set to get theirs. A sci-fi thriller, the story follows a young woman fleeing domestic abuse and puts her in a house that is haunted by past victims. “It’s a social commentary exploring victims being silenced,” said the director.

Off to Canada after that for a movie called Anna’s Skin, she wants the next generation to learn from her. They can never take their bodies and health for granted, she cautions and must not let the medical community be the first line of defense.

This especially when breast cancer can strike - even at the peak of health. “It happened to me, and if they can just go and get that early mammogram, it can save their life,” the survivor concluded.