BY WINSTONE ANTONIO
JACARANDA Culture and Media Corporation (JCMC) founder Steve Zhao yesterday said corporates must support and bankroll the National Arts Merit Awards (Nama) as they were the soul of the local culture industry.
JCMC has struck a five-year deal with National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) who are the awards founders to manage the event starting with this year’s edition to be held under the theme Taking It Back to the People on Saturday at the Harare International Conference Centre.
Speaking at a Press conference in Harare, Zhao said it was an honour for them to be the new managers of the country’s premier arts awards.
“One of the key elements this year is we have been selling Nama to our corporates and artists to say we are not only celebrating Nama. To us, Nama is not an event; it is the soul of Zimbabwe. We celebrate the legend of the culture industry. We celebrate the most achieving artistes in the industry for the year,” he said.
“Through Nama we are actually building the soul of Zimbabwe’s culture industry.”
Addressing the same event, JCMC managing director Napoleon Nyanhi said they had worked tirelessly to restore the prestige of the awards, adding that the groundwork had been done to present an epic show that would stick in stakeholders’ minds for a long time.
“We have tried to be as diverse as possible in the artists and art forms that will be showcased on the day and we have tried to create value in different aspect of the event.” he said.
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“We have managed to split Nama into four main events, the first one is the nominees’ reception on Friday night at Jameson Hotel in Harare, the second event is the red carpet show with performances. It’s a full production with full camera works and presenters from 6pm to 7:30pm, but in the main auditorium at 7pm we start the third event which is the pre-show for those who would have already walked the red carpet. From 8pm we then start the awards show.”
This year the awards ceremony will be open to the public almost after five years of only having invited guests. To attend the event the public has to fork out $200 and $500 for the ordinary and VIP ticket, respectively.
