New Opportunities, New Freedoms. Dutch Animated Film and the Digital Image Culture

In recent years a renaissance in the genre of the short animated film seems to have been taking place in the Netherlands. Never before have there been so many active producers of animation films. This is all to do with the digitisation of the image culture, which is radically changing the way films are produced, distributed and screened. The equipment and techniques for making animated films are becoming more and more user-friendly and also cheaper. Moreover, digitisation allows the makers of animated films to bring the various aspects of film-making increasingly under their own control. Animation is no longer a marginal phenomenon; it is shifting – as Minister of Education, Culture and Science Ronald Plasterk writes in his memorandum on animated film – towards the centre of image culture.