Netherlands Institute for Animation at risk
The NIAF has just uploaded an announcement on its website that "due to the uncertain political and financial situation, the Netherlands Institute for Animation film will no longer be manned" from 1 January 2013.
It library and multimedia centre will also be closing.
NIAf was founded in September 1993, and its inception owes a lot to the recently deceased animator Gerrit van Dijk. Together with the Holland Animation Film Festival (HAFF), the NIAf is the only professional organisation in the country where animation as an art form occupies centre stage.
For more than twenty years, NIAf is "dedicated to developing talent for professionals in our artist-in-residence programme, developing and reali<ing educational projects for all age groups, promoting Dutch animation films and their distribution at festivals world-wide, recording and safeguarding the nation's animation heritage, and researching and contributing to splendid animation exhibitions."
NIAF executives still hope and negotiate with various institutions such as the EYE Film Institute Netherlands and other parties within and outside the animation sector, but nothing is certain.
Read why NIAf is relevant to all animators (not only Dutch animators), and watch a silent (but moving) protest from Dutch animators against the financial cuts in culture and the arts.
Drawings by (among others) : Piotr Dumala, Paul Driessen, Dario van Vree, Emma de Swaef, Maarten Koopman and Studio Smack.