MINISTER KODWA UNVEILS NOMINEES FOR CCIA AWARDS

Auckland Park – The 18th of March 2024 was a day filled with excitement and anticipation for creatives across the country. It marked the unveiling of the nominations for the Cultural and Creative Industry Awards (CCIA), an event that promised not only recognition but also a chance to win the grand prize of R100,000. For those unfamiliar with the CCIA, it’s a relatively new accolade that recognises excellence in the creative space.

The public call for creatives to nominate or nominate themselves went out on the 8th of February, and closed on the 1st of March. While it was a short notice call, surprisingly the awards received an astounding 900 entries. I am not sure about the quality of most of the entries, but from what we can glean from the Minister’s speech, it was a tight competition.

“ We recognise 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,” he said.

Everyone seems to approve the nominee review committee, which includes some of the big wigs in the creativity space. Let’s look at them: Professor Pitika Ntuli, Mpho Molepo, Dr Thebe Ikalafeng and Desire Markgraaf, were tasked with sifting through close to 1000 names for the selection of the country’s most gifted.“ 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,” Kodwa said.

Upon taking office just a year ago, Kodwa committed to bridge the gap between the recognition of sports, and the creative industries. This was to be done as there was already an awards ceremony dedicated to celebrating athletes and sports stars, but a similar recognition programme for the country’s brightest stars in the creative industry did not exist in previous years.

Media partner SABC was challenged to shine the same bright spotlight on the creative industry as they do on sports. This was based on observations of how news, sports and weather reports were a daily occurrence, however, only a handful of slots were reserved for cultural and creative programmes.Collectively, the judges finalised the list of nominees to be honoured at the ceremony.

In addition to the awards, the winners will each walk away with R100 000.Nominees for Outstanding Fiction Book include Buntu Siwisa, Vernon Head and Morabo Morojele.Nominees for Nonfiction Book are Milton Shain, Mandla Radebe, Kumi Naidoo, Sandra Swart, and Sipho Sithole.Nominees for Outstanding publisher – Nal’ibali Trust, Itumelang Qhali, Terence Ball, Book Dash, Dee Wee PublicationCompeting for the Outstanding Museums Award is the Hector Pieterson Museum, Olievenhuis Art Gallery, and the Kader Heritage Lodge.

Zizipho Poswa, Badumile Dlamini and Rebecca Mathibe stand a chance to take the Outstanding Crafter Award home.There are various other awards, which means the judges will have their work cut out for them especially in the Fashion and Textile Designer category. The nominees for this one are Rich Mnisi, Laduma Ngcokolo (Maxhosa) and Mzukisi Mbane (Imprint).Three additional categories, namely the Best Newcomer, the Best Online Content Creator as well as the People’s choice Awards, are to be announced at a later date. The ceremony is set to take place on 30 March at the Sandton Convention Centre.