The World’s Writers Room Project
The World's Writers Room (WWR), is a global screenwriting collaborative project aiming to create the planet's largest assemblage of professional storytellers, all working on a specific episodic television narrative. Together they will launch an anthology series inspired by social distancing during the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We thought that the end of the world would have been about killing zombies, instead we’re here killing time,” Simona Nobile (Midpoint Tv Launch alumna, member of EWA Network ), writer member of the WWR quipped, bringing to mind the reality that plenty of filmmakers are currently forced to work under quarantine conditions. The members come from multicultural and multilingual backgrounds -- Italy, UK, France, USA, Japan, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Romania, Malta,
Greece and Cyprus among many -- that will push a fresh point of view. Using the anthology format and one unified theme, each mini writers room will work on a unique episode.
“I believe this will give us a chance to network with colleagues thousands of miles away and together find a common voice on the script page,” Andreas Kyriacou (Series Mania Writers Campus alumnus) said, with fellow WWR coordinating member Martin Bonnici stressing how the project seeks to exploit a silver lining of the enforced down-time imposed by the pandemic. Martin notes that “... this is an opportunity for us all to forge new connections and be part of a larger, International story” .
While pandemic, quarantine, lockdown and isolation will be some of the main keywords that will cohere the anthology together, the authors will be encouraged to present a diverse and dynamic take on what is a topical subject that is nonetheless open to rich interpretation.
“The last thing we want is to constrict our writing team to put forward a quick and easy knee-jerk reaction to what is an evolving global pandemic,” Eleonora Galasso (Torino SeriesLab alumna) of the WWR said. “Our anthology will be built on the values of diversity and openness, acknowledging the spectrum of pain and anxiety that the pandemic continues to wreak worldwide, and making good on the promise of storytelling to help us alleviate some of its most unpleasant after-effects” .
However, the variety espoused by the WWR also extends to tone and genre, and there will also be plenty of room for fun and humor in the planned rollout of episodes that will follow.
The pandemic affecting absolutely everyone means that every writer has their story to tell, and their unique perspective on things. An anthology series allows for precisely that kind of multiplicity to flourish, offering a rich repast of television entertainment for a truly international audience. Viewers can expect everything from drama to comedy, horror and science fiction from the WWR’s imminent series.
Currently 33 international professional screenwriters have registered to take part (currently 12 of which are women )and more than 60 writers have shown interest to join on a later stage. All of them have a solid track record in cinema and TV, as well as being graduates of highly acclaimed training programs from Midpoint, Serial Eyes, Torino, Series Mania and Canneseries.
“Selecting out of such a large pool of writers to whittle down into respective writers rooms has been something of a fun challenge,” Teodor Reljić writing member of the WWR explained that each of the registered writers were asked to fill out an information form as part of the registration process to give the WWR a good idea of their inclinations and interests as screenwriters.
Each mini writers room will meet and operate using the methods made fashionable under the quarantine, avoiding any real physical contact. The project will have a complete series bible by late summer and will be presented to international broadcasters and producers.
Undoubtedly themes of isolation and pandemics will be the hottest in the executives portfolios in the coming years but what stands out within the world’s writers room is the sheer number of diversity in ethnic, gender and credits, that each writer brings along. Meet the storytellers on their official site at www.worldswritersroom.tv and connect on their social media pages for frequent updates on the future of the series