It is a great pleasure for me to take the platform this afternoon, as we head closer to the inaugural Cultural & Creative Industries Awards (CCIA). Today we announce the nominees for the Awards categories.
The CCI Awards are an integrated all-encompassing platform for the arts, culture and heritage sector. We envision this to be the most desired cultural recognition in the South African creative industry in the years to come. I am excited that this takes place at the time when as a country we are celebrating 30 years of democracy. This is one of the milestones of the emancipation of our people.
The department intend to confer these awards annually to well deserving South Africans who are leading creatives in all the recognised creative sector disciplines and sub-domains. These would be creatives who demonstrate dedication to excellence and shining the spotlight within their artistic space.
We recognize and acknowledge these awards to be the currency of the creatives in the country. We believe that the industry will identify the awards to be the ultimate platform providing authenticity to highly talented creatives.
The program director and the lead adjudicator have already provided a clear explanation of the different categories to be recognised and I believe we all agree that there are still more categories that needs to be included as we grow the awards annually.
I am excited that provision has been made to allow the nation to participate in submitting nominations for the category of People’s choice. This brings us together as a nation and recognizes inputs from all citizens of our beautiful country.
The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture believes that the awards will make an immense contribution towards unlocking opportunities for our creatives.
I salute the independent panel of judges who have been appointed to do the most important work of sifting through the many applications received and acknowledge the amount of work that went into the final decisions that led to today’s announcement.
I must thank you and commend you for the great work that you have successfully done.
It will be amiss of me not to compliment the quality of submissions received towards this course. We are looking forward to receiving even more submissions as we move forward.
Let me also take this opportunity to thank all our sponsors and partners who have come on board towards the realization of this most important achievement in the Cultural and Creative Industries, also, thanking you all for availing yourself for to be part of this momentous occasion.
I am proud to introduce to you the nominees today!
I thank you!
