Script Files
Brittle
Riya and Zaina seem like the perfect couple at first glance but when Riya's husband shows up, the facade begins to crack. As past traumas come to light, so does the realization that all three are trapped in a toxic relationship of their own making.
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Mrittika SarinWriterChicago Med, Criminal Justice, Learning French
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Mrittika SarinDirector
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Project Type:Short Script
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Genres:LGBTQIA+, Drama
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Number of Pages:15
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Country of Origin:United States
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Language:English
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First-time Screenwriter:No
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Student Project:No
Mrittika ‘Mou’ Sarin is a queer Indian filmmaker, who has lived in Mumbai, Baltimore, the midwest and many places in between. This outside-in perspective makes her a keen observer of people, identity, and culture. She has a recent credit on CHICAGO MED and has also written on CRIMINAL JUSTICE (official Indian remake of HBO's THE NIGHT OF). She won Honorable Mention at the Sloan Grand Jury Prize from the Tribeca Film Institute for her climate feature SCARCE. Her other accolades include the Athena Film Festival Writer's Lab, Alfred P. Sloan Award in Screenwriting and multiple scholarships for TV writing. Before getting her MFA in screenwriting from UCLA, she produced the official Indian remake of THE OFFICE. Her cultural fluency was vital for projects taken from International sources so her boss decided to nickname her “export-import.” Now she’s technically an “export-import-export” but that depends on which country you’re looking at this from. This is what she loves about writing the most: transcending borders and exploring universal experiences.
At its core, Brittle is about being trapped. The specific feeling of being stuck inside a bubble that you don’t really want to escape because the outside world is uncertain. Like a teenager emancipating themselves from abusive parents or a couple realizing that they need to get a divorce; change is painful and most times, people don’t understand why they need it in the first place.
When thinking about Brittle as a story, it’s important to think of a triangle and how every point supports the other two points; or in this case, traps them. Brittle is interested in exploring what leads people to finally break out. Its goal is to get people thinking about how their emotions are so deeply rooted in the past and what a struggle it is to come to terms with them. Every character has conflicting views on past events and enables the other two to continue in this toxic threeway due to their own self-flagellation. When the story leads to a breaking point, the protagonist must figure out how she can leave this vicious cycle as well as fix her past mistakes. What she doesn’t realize yet is that this is not an ‘and’ situation but a choice between one or the other.