news / Press release
German Young Screenwriter Award for ifs student Robert Deçani
»Ithaka« awarded at the up-and-coming screenplay festival in Hanover
At the weekend, Robert Deçani, a student at the ifs Internationale Filmschule Köln, was awarded the German Newcomer Screenplay Prize at the 3rd up-and-coming screenplay festival in Hanover for his screenplay »Ithaka«.
The award was presented for two screenplays - also to Jana Forkel for »A Little Dream of Me« - selected from 136 submissions and seven nominations. It comes with prize money from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of €2,000 each, as well as sponsorship from renowned screenwriters from the film industry, this year Peter Henning and Julia Penner, and a one-year membership of the German Screenwriting Association (DDV).
In the screenplay »Ithaka«, award winner Robert Deçani tells the story of three men - father, son and uncle - who travel across Europe to Albania to say goodbye to their dying grandmother. “This is not a classic migration drama,” says the jury statement. “It is a poetic portrait of people struggling to find their place in the world - people we might label as foreigners or refugees if we overlook the essentials: their longings and shattered dreams, which are essentially our own.” In its laudatory speech, the jury continued: “This story has no easy answers. It is the pauses, the glances, the things left unsaid between the characters that show us the gaps in life - gaps that may never be completely filled, but which teach us that in the end we can only really arrive thrown back on ourselves. And that returning home is sometimes the only way to find ourselves.
Robert Deçani is studying directing in the 7th semester of the Bachelor's degree in Film at the ifs. His screenplay »Heimgesucht« (together with screenplay student Nina Lieverscheidt) was already shortlisted for the 2nd German Young Screenwriter Award in 2022. His ifs short film »Das Cello« was shown at numerous national and international festivals and won several awards. Robert Deçani's graduation film »Djemtë E Ilirit« (»Sons of Ilir«) was funded by the Young Talent Foundation and is currently in post-production.
The German Young Talent Screenplay Award and the up-and-coming Screenplay Festival are part of the national cultural competition up-and-coming Int. Film Festival Hannover, which has been in existence since 1982. The main sponsor is the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Other sponsors are nordmedia Film- und Mediengesellschaft Niedersachsen/Bremen mbH and the Cultural Office of the City of Hanover.
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