Hallå! My guest this week is Swedish screenwriter and director Ruben Östlund, who I met in London in December. Ruben's feature films include 2014's Force Majeure, 2017's The Square, and 2022's Triangle of Sadness, which is nominated for three Oscars including Best Original Screenplay. He has a unique way of writing, doing a lot of talking before he even gets close to typing out the script; he tells me about that, plus how making ski movies influenced his sense of dramatic excitement, and why it's a good thing that filmmaking never gets easier. He makes reference to Stanley Milgram's famous electric shock experiment, which you can read about here: https://simplypsychology.org/milgram.html Watch the trailer for Triangle of Sadness here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWrS7f_nS9w Sign up for the In Writing newsletter and join my writers' community on Substack: https://inwriting.substack.com/ This season of In Writing is sponsored by Curtis Brown Creative (http://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk). Use code INWRITING20 for £20 off one of their four, five, six, or ten-week online writing courses. Or, visit https://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/course/writing-an-original-tv-drama-serial-0423 to read about their 18-week, in-person course in Writing an Original TV Drama Serial.

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