How a Best Screenplay Award, a Lifetime of Cultural Threads, and a Circle of Creators Led Back to Sev Ohanian

By Stephen Cyrus Sepher

A story about craft, timing, and the unexpected ways our work returns to us.

Some moments in this business arrive quietly. They do not announce themselves. They do not come with music. They simply reveal a connection you did not know was forming behind the scenes, long before you were aware of it.

That happened to me the night Wages of Sin won Best Screenplay at the Arpa International Film Festival. I was grateful, proud of the work, proud of the team, and glad the film resonated. What I did not realize at the time was that one of the judges on that panel was Sev Ohanian. And what I learned later surprised me. Years earlier, he had read a completely different screenplay of mine. He remembered it. He remembered the writing. He remembered the storytelling voice.

I had no idea.

When the writing speaks first and the connections reveal themselves later.

Long before that moment, my path as a produced writer began in a way that changed everything. My career started with Bus 657, later released in the United States as Heist, starring Robert De Niro. That film opened the door. It taught me how to write for actors of that level, how to stand behind my choices, and how to navigate the unpredictable business that follows a script once it leaves your hands.

That lesson stayed with me. Writing travels. It gets read by people you may never meet. It leaves impressions you may never hear about. Years later, when Sev watched Wages of Sin at Arpa, judging it on its own merits, he had no idea he had already connected with my work once before.

Before any of this, my life had already been shaped by many cultures. I spent six years of my childhood in Vienna. Those early years gave me an instinct to observe, to understand rooms, and to pay attention to details. Vienna teaches you to read people through silence. It teaches you to value intention. It teaches you to look for structure beneath the surface. Those instincts stayed with me. They shaped my writing long before I ever set foot on a film set.

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How a script I wrote years ago resurfaced at the right moment with the right reader.

Over the years I worked closely with Nazo Bravo, an actor, rapper, and producer who became my connection to the Armenian filmmaker community. Through him I became aware of artists like Sev Ohanian, even though Sev and I had never crossed paths directly.

At the same time, Sev was building a remarkable trajectory of his own. Film school. Fruitvale Station. The innovation of Searching. And eventually Sinners, a film that marks a major milestone in his career. The craftsmanship behind that movie speaks for itself. The reach. The execution. The vision. It is the kind of film that announces a filmmaker’s arrival on a new level.

And here is the part that made me pause.
The filmmaker who made Sinners also happened to be one of the judges who voted for Wages of Sin at Arpa.
Coincidence.
But also not.

A reflection on the quiet paths our work takes long before we ever see the results.

Filmmaking teaches you patience whether you want it to or not. There are long stretches where nothing moves. Long stretches where the work feels invisible. You write scenes that may never be filmed. You pour months into drafts that may never find the right home. You create in silence, not knowing who will ever see it or when it will matter.

But something happens along the way. The projects you fight for slowly take shape. The ideas that feel impossible suddenly find the right collaborators. The films you make, no matter the scale, begin to build their own quiet momentum. You start to realize that nothing in this craft is wasted. Every script. Every rewrite. Every long night. It all becomes part of a future you cannot yet see.

Filmmaking is a long game. The rewards are unpredictable. The timing is never what you expect. But the only thing that stays constant is the work. The pages. The discipline. The willingness to show up even when no one is watching. In the end, that consistency becomes its own kind of momentum. And it carries you forward in ways you never see coming.

How creative circles form without planning, and how one of them led back to Sev Ohanian.

Wages of Sin winning Best Screenplay was a milestone. But the deeper moment was recognizing that my connection to Sev Ohanian did not start on that night. It began quietly years earlier, through a creative community I entered because of Nazo Bravo, who connected me to Armenian filmmakers whose approach to storytelling left an impression on me. Somewhere within that orbit, Sev read a script of mine. Years later, he watched Wages of Sin with no idea he had seen my work before. Different projects. Different timelines. One unseen thread.

The craft spoke first.

In the end, that is the real story. Not identity. Not circles. Not shared experience. Simply the work. The pages. The choices. The voice that leaves the room before you do, and sometimes finds its way back to you at exactly the right moment.

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