Khulubvi Cultural Fest set for August

The fifth edition of Khulubvi Cultural Festival will be held during the first week of August 2025. Eric Trinta, a musician and arts activist, who is the proprietor of Nyamithambo Arts Palace, confirmed the development on Wednesday.Trinta, who has also been in the forefront lobbying for the establishment of the National Arts and Heritage Council (Nahec), said they were at advanced stages of preparations for the festival, which seeks to use arts to promote the Shire Valley as well as tackle various issues in order to bring about change.“A lot will happen this year as calendars have been merged and will see shrine activities and the cultural festival running together,” Trinta said.He said, last year, the cultural festival attracted a huge audience and that they managed to showcase traditional dances that are performed in the Shire Valley.“The Shire River is rich in a lot of things and, through the festival, we want to show players out there that there is a need to raise Chikwawa and Nsanje’s status,” Trinta said.Apart from Khulubvi Cultural Festival, Trinta said they would be holding a memorial show for Shire Valley fallen artists on May 30 2025 at Chididi.“This is the second time we are holding the memorial event. Last year, we held it at Bangula and, now, we will be holding it at Chididi. This is an annual event to show respect to our great artists, who contributed a lot to the development of arts in the country and the Shire River,” Trinta said.Some of the fallen artists that will be remembered include Katelele Ching’oma, Joseph Tembo, Grace Chinga and JC Novida.“We are holding the memorial event at Chididi because we want to open it up to tourism. People Strategy, they wanted to align the memorial event and festival with it should come over and appreciate Zambezi River from our hills and also get to appreciate the beauty of the Shire River,” Trinta said.He said with the country focusing its attention on the ATM (Agriculture, Tourism and Mining) “We want to see investors coming down to the Shire Valley to invest. We want the inland port to start functioning; we want to see boats there and we want the airfield to be renovated for flights,” Trinta said.Meanwhile, Trinta has lamented failure by the government to allocate the K3.78 billion to Nahec, with only K708 million put up.“The K708 million means nothing in as far as implementation [of activities] is concerned and it is not addressing the real wishes of those in the creative industry,” he said.He said the government needed to look at the creative sector as a “goldmine” that has the potential to change the landscape.“You can even see that the Department of Arts has only been given K505 million and yet this is a sector that can help create products for tourism as per ATM,” Trinta said.