Writing Is a Mess. Editing Is Housekeeping.

I’m convinced life always finds ways to humble us. Just as I was celebrating getting into the TorinoFilmLab NeXT – TV Series programme as a Story Editor Trainee last week, a producer gave us this very specific note on our own pilot: “This story needs serious, serious editing.” Oh, well… 🙂

Yes, sure, it stung. But it also gave me another purpose this week as I’ve been going through meetings at TorinoFilmLab. Suddenly, I wasn’t only thinking about how to help other writers understand where their stories stop working and how they might fix them. I was also wondering how I could bring the same thinking back to our own project. So, all week, I closely observed how my mentor approached the projects we’re working on, took notes on his feedback, and kept asking myself: How does this apply to our own story?

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18 Years to Get Made: Widow’s Bay

Now, I’m touched. This is the cover page of Widow’s Bay pilot script, signed by Katie Dippold and donated to the Writers Guild Foundation to become part of the WGF Library. Katie Dippold won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for Widow’s Bay last week. And it turns out she actually wrote the first version of the pilot eighteen years ago!

Well, this is the kind of information that can give writers despair and hope at the same time. 🙂 But I think it’s best to take it as a glimpse into the nature of the development process. Which is why I find the words Dippold wrote on the script especially meaningful: “This was a passion project that took 18 years to get made. I’m relieved it didn’t happen a day sooner.”

The WGF Library also organizes Script Breakdown events with writers, and it would be fascinating to hear Katie Dippold dive into the pilot and talk more about the journey this story took from that first version to the one that finally made it to the screen.

The WGF Library’s next Script Breakdown is on September 29th, with Nia Vardalos discussing My Big Fat Greek Wedding. You can register here: https://www.wgfoundation.org/events/all/2026/9/14/wgf-library-script-breakdown-my-big-fat-greek-wedding-with-nia-vardalos

(Image: Writers Guild Foundation / Instagram)

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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.”

Continue reading “Kingdom of Shadows. Again.” →
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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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