Honoring Robert Redford at Home

Robert Redford will be honoured “at home.”

The Sundance Institute is launching a three-part series celebrating Redford’s enduring legacy, both as an artist and as the founder of the Institute.

The first event in the series takes place on February 10. Thankfully, it will be available online alongside a live audience. You can register here:

https://collab.sundance.org/catalog/The-Sundance-Institute-Founder-Series-Honoring-Robert-Redford-with-David-Lowery

I also stumbled upon a 2016 interview where Redford reflects on the early years of the Sundance Film Festival:

“It started in ’85 and there was no support at all. There was one theater, the Egyptian. Maybe three restaurants in town. I wasn’t sure it was going to work. It looked like a risk, it wouldn’t pay off. Just a few people came, maybe a hundred people wandered around wondering what was going on in this theater, and we had maybe 25 films, six documentaries, and that’s how it started. So for three years we really struggled. Until Sex, Lies, and Videotape came through. Then suddenly word got out that something was going on over here.”

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The Rental Family

I love culturally nuanced films, and The Rental Family is definitely one of them. Co-written by the director Hikari and Stephen Blahut, it follows an American actor who begins working for a Japanese rental family service, which hires actors to stand in for missing or non-existent people in real lives.

The film emphasizes vulnerability and connection in a gentle, non-preaching way. Apparently, the script was developed during the pandemic, and the isolation and loneliness of that period inspired the writers to make these feelings part of the story’s core.

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Pazartesi Script Club, Year One

Facebook memories keep reminding me, though I don’t really need them. I was already in a reflective mood with the year coming to an end. So here’s a little recap of my script club in 2025.

1. How it started: I was reading and analysing scripts on my own, reverse-engineering them to understand what made stories work. Then I discovered monthly script clubs and quickly fell in love with the idea. Inspired by CenterFrame’s Script Club and Sundance Collab, I founded my own script club in November 2024.

2. The name “Pazartesi”: It means “Monday” in Turkish. Somehow, despite its usual negative associations, I realised I actually love Mondays. I love their seriousness, that sense of beginning, the feeling that everything is still possible. Just like screenwriting, it requires discipline, but it’s also fun and exciting. Since it also marks time, it’s easier for it to feel like a tradition: meeting on a Monday once a month.

3. Groundhog Day: Groundhog Day is simply my all-time favourite movie, so it naturally became the subject of our first meeting. I was happy to find the script online, but as I kept reading, I realised it wasn’t the final draft. There were major differences between the version I had and the finished film. I got quite frustrated. My deep-dive internet search for the final version led nowhere, so I decided to ask the screenwriter himself, Danny Rubin. Audacity? Maybe. But I had nothing to lose.

4. Danny Rubin is my pen friend (not really): I sent an email explaining the situation, and he replied quickly. Not only did he kindly share a scan of the shooting script, but he also explained how Harold Ramis added an opening scene after test screenings and how Bill Murray improvised some of his lines.

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Thelma’s Toothpaste

Are you good at picking a gift for your loved ones? That skill might come unexpectedly in handy when you’re creating characters. But how?

In one of her interviews, Thelma & Louise screenwriter Callie Khouri mentioned that she once came across an interview with Geena Davis, where Davis said, “I bet Callie Khouri knows which toothpaste Thelma uses.”

Khouri later laughed and replied, “Yes, of course. Thelma uses the one with red, green, and blue stripes.”

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The Unexpected Lesson I Learned from John Yorke: Creative Community Building

At the beginning of summer, I joined John Yorke’s 16-week training on story structure, and though it ended a few weeks ago, it’s still keeping me inspired. How?

Now I’m in the alumni area, which connects not only classmates but everyone who has ever taken the course, as well as participants from other programs on the platform.
There are weekly “sit & write” sessions where writers from around the world gather online and focus on their own projects for two hours, as well as monthly interviews with authors, screenwriters and producers. Honestly, it feels like having a lifetime free-flying pass for creative growth.

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Everyone Says Call My Agent! (Spoiler: But in very different ways)

This month, our Script Club focused on the Turkish version of Call My Agent! (the acclaimed French series Dix Pour Cent).
As I dug into the pilot script, I noticed the starkly different creative choices between the French and Turkish versions.

Sure, much of it comes down to culture, industry norms, and audience expectations but what fascinated me was how these elements translate into the dramatic codes of each country. And as a writer, I wondered if I could learn something from seeing how each remake reshaped the same story through its own lens.

Here is what I did to find out.

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Let Your Ears Burn

Let’s be honest. Sharing this piece brings both shame and joy.

Joy, because I first wrote it back in 2015 and it found its way into a book by Danny Gregory; one of my favorite voices on creativity.
Shame, because it’s a raw confession of my lifelong battle with my inner critic. Even now, my ears still burn when I reread it.

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Just a story?

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder: if we haven’t been personally transformed over the years, then what are we even doing in the storytelling business? Where do all those stories we take in go? Do we just watch them and think, “Well, that only happens in movies”? Are the characters the only ones who need to grow — while we remain safely untouched?

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