Animation is not limited by the 24 frames per second for traditional film — nor is it a simply a profit-oriented medium aimed at children. For Gerben Schermer, the director of the Holland Animation Film Festival (HAFF) in The Netherlands, animation is an independent art with limitless possibilities.

Held annually at the picturesque city of Utrecht, the HAFF showcases narrative and non-narrative animation from all over the world for the public.

Providing an alternative to the popular, colorful and happy-go-lucky animated films and series appearing on televisions and the silver screen, the festival features a wide array of animation — from the narrative to experimental, as well as from the jaunty to the gloomy.

Schermer’s diverse style was reflected in his curation of several short animated films from Europe that were screened at the recently concluded 2015 Europe on Screen film festival, which was held in six cities throughout Indonesia in early May.

Among the films was the Oscar-nominated A Single Life, by the directing trio of Job, Joris & Marieke, which presented a visually vivid and musically jovial story of a time-travelling girl.

There was also Run, by Stuart Pound, a creative editing of sequences from The Matrix, where images were titled, duplicated five times and played at timed intervals — creating a rhythmic sounds and visuals.

Due to its live action nature, Run could easily have been excluded from the animation genre. But Schermer said that Run was a work of animation, noting that popular definitions of animation evolved over time.

“It is like in the past 20 or 30 years, the definition of animation was really limited,” Schermer said at a discussion after a screening in South Jakarta recently. ”Everybody was thinking about frame by frame, at 24 or 25 frames per second.”

A frame from House of Unconsciousness from Estonia, one of the winners of the HAFF.(HAFF)

Filmmakers developed new kinds of animation following the invention of new technologies, he said. “Animation is also way of thinking and, of course, it can be editing. But for me it [Run] is animation as well.”

Both Run and A Single Life were featured at HAFF, which was initiated in 1985 by the late animators Gerrit van Dijk and Schermer, who was studying cultural management at university at the time.

“I was working in this arthouse cinema and I got an opportunity to organize this festival. It all came together because of the passion I had for animation,” he says.

In his third year of study, Schermer dropped out to focus on managing and curating films for HAFF.

Schermer says that animators must remain open to new ideas or lose out in the end. “I believe in the art of animation and the art of animation is looking for the borderline, looking for experiments.”

Reloaded: A frame from Run, by Stuart Pound. (Courtesy of Stuart Pound)

He continues. “Animation is not only what you see on the big screen, but animation can also be a sculpture. Sculpture is moving at the right speed [and] with the right flickering, it feels like animation.”

Animators draw upon a host of influences to create their works, according to Schermer, citing the classic work of animators from Eastern Europe and Russia during the time of the Soviet Union.

“They used animation as a kind of medium to express their complaints and dissatisfactions about the political system. They worked these metaphors,” he says. “And that is over now. I mean, of course, [there are] still a lot of problems in Russia but it’s a different kind of thing. The whole animation industry in Russia is somehow controlled now by the church.”

On animation in Indonesia, Schermer encouraged local filmmakers to see as many films as possible to understand the possibilities they have to create.

“When you see the animation from Indonesia, it quite looks the same kind of things based on what they know from television or gaming. And that is quite boring, I must say.

If they all go into that direction maybe commercially at the end it is interesting but artistically it will never survive.”

Gerben Schermer - Courtesy of James Arthur Watulingas of LSPR Media Centre

Animation is not limited by the 24 frames per second for traditional film '€” nor is it a simply a profit-oriented medium aimed at children. For Gerben Schermer, the director of the Holland Animation Film Festival (HAFF) in The Netherlands, animation is an independent art with limitless possibilities.

Held annually at the picturesque city of Utrecht, the HAFF showcases narrative and non-narrative animation from all over the world for the public.

Providing an alternative to the popular, colorful and happy-go-lucky animated films and series appearing on televisions and the silver screen, the festival features a wide array of animation '€” from the narrative to experimental, as well as from the jaunty to the gloomy.

Schermer'€™s diverse style was reflected in his curation of several short animated films from Europe that were screened at the recently concluded 2015 Europe on Screen film festival, which was held in six cities throughout Indonesia in early May.

Among the films was the Oscar-nominated A Single Life, by the directing trio of Job, Joris & Marieke, which presented a visually vivid and musically jovial story of a time-travelling girl.

There was also Run, by Stuart Pound, a creative editing of sequences from The Matrix, where images were titled, duplicated five times and played at timed intervals '€” creating a rhythmic sounds and visuals.

Due to its live action nature, Run could easily have been excluded from the animation genre. But Schermer said that Run was a work of animation, noting that popular definitions of animation evolved over time.

'€œIt is like in the past 20 or 30 years, the definition of animation was really limited,'€ Schermer said at a discussion after a screening in South Jakarta recently. '€Everybody was thinking about frame by frame, at 24 or 25 frames per second.'€