Award Rationale

Thelyia Petraki receives the Best Screenplay award for a work that embraces lyrical fragmentation in place of rigid dramatic architecture. Rather than following a conventional plot-driven structure, the screenplay unfolds with the freedom of a literary poem or an associative diary.

Its emotional world is built through memory, friendship, sensation, and the quiet awareness that every moment is temporary. The writing creates a fluid relationship between intimate human experience and the scale of the universe, allowing childhood gestures and fleeting details to acquire unexpected emotional weight.

Visual analogies are embedded in the screenplay itself: the pores of the skin, the light in the girls’ eyes, and dust moving through sunlight evoke galaxies and nebulae. Through this poetic correspondence between the human body and the cosmos, 400 CASSETTES demonstrates the expressive possibilities of cinematic writing and earns the Best Screenplay award.

Synopsis

After a lesson about cosmic archaeologists and a water fight in the schoolyard, Elly steals Faye’s soul, while Faye gives Elly a rare birthday present.

Later, beneath a sky filled with stars, a song from the past reminds the two girls that nothing truly lasts forever.