Akolkol Dastan Gesa is a community arts and film project with young people from an Intensive English Centre in WA.

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The main aims of the project are:

• Empower young people

• Increase diversity on screen

• Create broadcast-quality film 

 

In 2017, thirty young participants worked with a team of high-profile artists to create a music video for their original song Same Drum. The team included producer/director Poppy van Oorde-Grainger, musician Scott “Optamus” Griffiths, dancer Rita Nita, writer David Vincent Smith, cinematographer Matsu and filmmaker Gemma Parsons.

 

The music video was released for Harmony Week 2018 and broadcast on national television, radio and online to more than 500K people. The young people were subsequently invited to perform at the 20,000 person State Of The Art festival and nominated for a West Australian Song of the Year award. The project was supported by project partners Beyond Empathy, Aranmore Catholic College, DADAA and Community Arts Network and assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

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In 2019, the project is creating a short film called Two Sands written by Kook Makim Manuer and Poppy van Oorde-Grainger, produced by David Kucha and Lauren Brunswick and featuring members of the WA South Sudanese community . Two Sands is supported by Screenwest.

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