Graz International House of Authors
Doruntina Basha
Prishtina, Kosovo
2025
playwright and screenwriter
*1981
Doruntina Basha studied Playwriting at the University of Prishtina and earned her Master’s degree in European Humanities through a consortium of universities: the University of St. Andrews (UK), Università degli Studi di Bergamo (IT), and Université de Perpignan Via Domitia (FR).
Her play The Finger (2011) won the Best Socially Engaged Play in a regional competition organized by Heartefact Fund (Belgrade) and Qendra Multimedia (Prishtina). It went on to receive the Golden Laurel for Best Contemporary Balkan Play at the MESS International Theater Festival in Sarajevo (2013), and was named Best National Play at the Talia e Flakës Festival in Gjilan (2016). Since its debut, The Finger has had over ten productions worldwide, been translated into several languages, and published in Kosovo, Serbia, Italy, the UK, the USA, and Turkey. Her other play Stiffler won the Best National Play award at Talia e Flakës in Gjilan (2025).
Basha’s debut feature screenplay Vera Dreams of the Sea (2021, dir. Kaltrina Krasniqi), premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival (Orizzonti section) and was honored at numerous international festivals, winning accolades such as the Grand Prix at the Tokyo International Film Festival, Silver Alexander at Thessaloniki, and the Ingmar Bergman Award at the Göteborg Film Festival.
She is a Bogliasco Foundation and CEC ArtsLink fellow, a TorinoFilmLab and Midpoint alumna. In 2022, her second feature screenplay ‘Bleach’ won the ‘Female Voice’ award given by the European Women’s Audiovisual Network at the TorinoFilmLab industry event.
She works as a playwright, screenwriter, consultant and story editor in her country and internationally.
• Graz International House of Authors
