The Magic and Politics of the Writers’ Room

I love being in the writers’ room. Not just because it means I’m hired and I can put my endless search for the next job on hold, at least for a while, but because it’s a place where you can dive deeper into a story and explore its potential thoroughly with others. And even that can be very satisfying in itself. But not just that.

For me, there’s something almost magical about the writers’ room: you observe creativity in action, witness the birth of an idea, good or bad, marvel at how other creatives’ minds work, and practice speaking your own mind. It’s truly a learning environment: being in a writers’ room for a month may mean learning more than you would on your own in a year, if you’re open to collaborating with others.

And I’m not just talking about learning the nuts and bolts of the craft. You also learn how to approach the process. For example, I remember realizing that I had been judging and discarding my ideas quite prematurely after watching a head writer turn not-so-good ideas into gold again and again.

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256… and counting

I don’t usually think in numbers. My little brother is the one who studied statistics. But as I was going through the participant lists from our Script Club meetings, I realized we’ve had 256 unique participants since we started in December 2024.

To be honest, people came and went, and I never realized how many people had been part of it until now. I’m grateful to have had the chance to watch this creative community take shape in the most organic way.

256 and counting. Stay tuned. ❤️

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DJ Ahmet

I like coming-of-age films in general, and DJ Ahmet is a heartwarming one. Written and directed by Georgi Unkovski, it was awarded at Sundance Film Festival in 2025.

The film is set in a Turkish Yörük town in Macedonia and is largely in Turkish. At times, though, I felt some of the dialogue was quietly screaming, “Rewrite me, please.”

Still, I really liked the idea at the heart of it: escaping family issues and conservative traditions through electronic dance music.

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Kingdom of Shadows. Again.

“their smiles are lifeless,” “as if these people have died and their shadows have been condemned to play cards in silence unto eternity.” “unnervingly silent.”

These are not reactions to a recent AI clip.

These words belong to a young Maxim Gorky, who saw the Lumière films at a Russian fair in 1896. Working as a journalist at the time, he sat down to write his impressions and began his article with: “Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows.”

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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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