How My Film 'Healing Hands' Allowed Me to Reflect on a Trauma From My Childhood

      Jordan Ochel is the writer-director of "Healing Hands," an emotionally impactful short film about a deaf five-year-old boy (Alexander Campos III) whose parents (Mor Cohen and Ruben Javier Caballero) take him to see a faith healer (Steven Pounders). In the following piece, Ochel shares the childhood memory that motivated the film, which recently debuted online via Omeleto. —M.M.

      Who could have foreseen that this moment would transform into the short film "Healing Hands"? I tremble as I breathe. I swallow hard. Beyond the bright lights in the darkness are ten thousand eyes fixed on me, waiting for a five-year-old deaf boy to respond to the faith healer’s query.

      A response I knew to be a fabrication.

      Three decades later, this untruth evolved into the most significant truth I could express through film. "Healing Hands" follows Jonah, a five-year-old deaf boy compelled to validate a faith healer’s miracle in front of a large crowd. However, the process of creating this film was filled with its share of heartaches, challenges, and moments of grace.

      Heartaches

      For many years, this experience—a story—lay dormant and painful within me. After my acceptance into the master's program in film at Baylor University, I understood that this story would serve as my graduate thesis film. But when it came time to write the script, I found myself staring at a blank screen for weeks. After all, how does one begin to cultivate a narrative spawned from a traumatic event?

      It wasn't until months of auditions had passed that my first lead actor, a five-year-old deaf boy, withdrew from the project just a day before I planned to offer him the role.

      His mother expressed her regret. “He says the script makes him feel too sad.” In other words, my own lived experience was too painful for a five-year-old to portray.

      Her words reopened a wound I believed had healed.

      In truth, this speaks volumes about that young boy’s empathy. But how could I start anew in light of this rekindled pain? From the very beginning, it was essential that I cast a deaf child actor; if I could not find one, I would have to abandon the project.

      I realized that the true challenge lay not only in telling my story but also in ensuring I did not ask another child to bear that weight alone.

      With the gentle encouragement of my wife, my parents, my thesis advisor Chris Hansen, and my mentor Maverick Moore (“My Dinner With Werner”), I reached out to online d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, asking them to help spread the word about my search for a deaf child actor.

      "Healing Hands" director Jordan Ochel, left, and director of photography Davin Fitch. Photo courtesy of the filmmaker.

      Ultimately, we narrowed it down to two families, one of which had two deaf boys who wore hearing aids, none of whom had previous acting experience.

      I was fortunate that the boy I cast, Alexander Campos III, delivered such an honest and impressive performance that I quickly forgot he was acting out my own experiences. He didn’t merely portray Jonah; he embodied him. His performance was made possible, in part, because his family was fully supportive and committed. After all, this story was significant to them, too.

      Headaches

      After securing a $10,000 grant, receiving $7,500 in donations, and spending $5,000 out of pocket, I found myself deep in the logistical challenges of this endeavor. My fantastic director of photography, Davin Fitch, and I had a complex shot to plan for the megachurch scene.

      Throughout pre-production, several people suggested relocating the scene to a smaller church. Logistically, this would have simplified things. However, that was not the experience I had. I needed viewers to feel the intensity and pressure of a huge, captivated audience. Much like his biblical namesake, I wanted the spectators' expectations to resemble the great fish looming over Jonah, ready to swallow him if he didn’t say or do the “right” thing. In my experience, a megachurch setting was the only way to convey this in a short film.

      The only question remained: how would we achieve this?

      We discovered a stage at a local middle school, but its auditorium was too small, and hiring hundreds of extras to fill the seats was out of our budget. My first assistant director, Dan Beard, recommended a talented VFX artist he had collaborated with, Philip Heinrich. Philip is exceptionally skilled and consistently exceeds expectations.

      His proposal was:

      - Attach LED lights to a dozen chairs in the actual auditorium.

      - Use a Steadicam for the reveal shot.

      - Acquire a 3D model of an auditorium.

      - Film a small number of seated extras on green screen.

      He planned to track the lights, integrate the 3D model, randomly assign seats to the green-screened extras, and rotoscope the stage, podium,