Atuu Festival Of Arts To Unearth Talents

Abeiku Sagoe

Aspiring musicians, writers and movie makers have an opportunity to shoot to fame with the call of entries by the organisers of the Atuu Festival of Arts which climaxes in August.

The Joint Committee of Collective Management Organisations (JCCMO) is calling for aspiring songwriters, musicians, poets, playwrights, scriptwriters, photographers and filmmakers aged between 15 to 21 years to send in entries into a competition.

The competition is in three categories— songwriting; creative writing which covers drama, poetry and fiction and sight and sounds.

For the songwriting category, the songs should be recorded and put on either a CD or pen drive and the lyrics attached.

For youngsters interested in the creative writing category which covers drama, poetry and fiction, the entries should be based on the theme for the festival – ‘Our Culture, Our Development’ and should not be more than 800 words. For those submitting poems, it should be one page or 20 minutes for the drama.

Entries in the sight and sounds category should be of cultural and tourism significance. The entries can either be paintings, still photos or short videos and they should have cultural and tourism significance.

John Abeiku Sagoe, a member of the planning committee, revealed that “the idea is to give budding artistes an opportunity to expose their talents and get some quality mentoring from the industry.”

The closing date for the entries is June 30 and the winners will be announced at the climax of the festival on August 25.

The Atuu Festival of Arts was opened at Essikadu in the Western Region by Nana Kwasi Agyeman IX, Omanhene of Lower Dixcove Traditional Area and Nana Kobina Nketiah V, Omanhene of Essikadu Traditional Area.

A series of activities, including film festivals, music and drama shows and conferences have been lined up as part of the festival.