LOS ANGELES -- Ryan Coogler is back on the University of Southern California campus for the first time since becoming one of the country's most promising young filmmakers, and he heads straight to the camera-rental center where he worked as a student. He runs into a former classmate, who high-fives and congratulates him, then asks for a photo. Coogler sheepishly obliges.

"This is inspiring, right here!" the younger man says as he snaps an iPhone shot of himself and Coogler. "Thank you, bro!"

Coogler gives the student his email address, then looks for his old boss, the equipment manager, who tells the 27-year-old filmmaker that he's set a new standard for success at USC's film school, which counts Ron Howard and George Lucas as alumni.

There's no doubt he has. Coogler's "Fruitvale Station" - his first dramatic feature and first project since graduating with a master's degree in 2011 - won both jury and audience awards at the Sundance Film Festival, where the Weinstein Co. outbid a dozen studios to distribute it. Originally called simply "Fruitvale," the film opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles, and around the nation later this month. Oscar buzz has already begun.

But nothing like that was on Coogler's mind when he decided to make the film. A native of Oakland, Calif., he was home for Christmas break during his first year at film school when 22-year-old Oscar Grant was shot by transit police in the city's Fruitvale station on New Year's Eve, 2009. Scores of witnesses filmed the fatal shooting of the unarmed black man by white officer Johannes Mehserle on their cellphones, and riots and protests exploded in Oakland and around the country. (Mehserle was eventually convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to two years behind bars.)

Coogler was also 22 then, looked like Grant and came from the same neighborhood. It could have been him that night, he thought.

"I wanted to do something that could potentially have a proactive effect, that could maybe trigger a thought process or a discussion that could possibly prevent things like this from happening in the future," he said. "And I thought a film could be effective in proving this person's humanity."

Coogler has the athletic build of the football star he was, and a gregarious personality that leads him to greet several students he passes on campus. But there's something deeper: A profound desire to tell stories that aren't often heard, stories of people like him, like Oscar Grant. It's a passion that inspired him to abandon dreams of medical school to pursue filmmaking.

It's that drive, along with Coogler's talent, that caught the eye of USC professor Jed Dannenbaum, who contacted producer Nina Yang Bongiovi, telling her there's someone she had to meet.

"He's truly brilliant," Bongiovi remembers the professor saying.

She met with Coogler, and he gave her some short films he'd made at school. She watched them immediately and told collaborator Forest Whitaker, who'd been seeking a young artist to mentor, that they just had to work with him.

"I felt he was going to be one of those important filmmakers of his generation," she said.

She set up a meeting between the Oscar winner and the college student, who remembers wearing a shirt and tie to school that day.

"I was really nervous," Coogler said, recalling how he attended the meeting between classes and had to bring his backpack along.

He told Whitaker his ideas for "Fruitvale," "and he said he wanted to help me make it," Coogler recalled, lighting up at the memory.