Age: 67
male
Charles Stuart Kaufman (born November 19, 1958) is an American filmmaker and novelist. He wrote the films Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). He both wrote and directed the films Synecdoche, New York (2008), Anomalisa (2015), and I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020). In 2020, Kaufman made his literary debut with the release of his first novel, Antkind. One of the most celebrated screenwriters of his era, Kaufman has received an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Independent Spirit Awards, and a Writers Guild of America Award. Film critic Roger Ebert called Synecdoche, New York "the best movie of the decade" in 2009. Three of Kaufman's scripts appear in the Writers Guild of America's list of the 101 greatest movie screenplays ever written.
In the stillness of an unremarkable town, the sky begins to weep ink — thick, black drops that stain not just the streets, but the minds of those it touches. Memories dissolve like wet paper. Names vanish from tongues. Entire lives are unwritten. As reality blurs into dream, a barefoot child appears, silent and strange, whispering of “the world below the page,” where forgotten things sink and stories go to rot. Mara Quinn, a schoolteacher haunted by dreams she no longer remembers, clings to the fraying threads of her identity as the town fades around her. To survive, she must follow the child into the folds between worlds — where the sky is not leaking, but bleeding ink from a pen that never meant to write her at all.
