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Money: the biggest threat to our cultural heritage

Update: According to the Filmkrant, it's not all that bad: http://www.filmkrant.nl/nieuws_2013/9842

It was announced today that a large archive containing almost all raw film material from the Netherlands in the shredder threatens to disappear. Since film laboratory Cineco is bankrupt due to the vanished demand for oldskool celluloid, the vault containing unique historical material must also go. Unless someone comes forward who wants to store the material. And that costs quite a bit of money. Even though we no longer work with the highly flammable nitrate films, all that plastic must be kept safe.

Thus, yet another unique heritage collection is in danger of disappearing due to lack of funds. Were previously the collections of the Theatre Institute of the Netherlands saved from the chipper by the University of Amsterdam, the Collection of the Netherlands Radio Music Centre is still not safe, as megalomaniac plans for a new complex in The Hague have been shelved. Again, because there is no money, or money is misspent.

Thanks to the thriftiness of Dutch broadcasting, we have already lost a lot of unique material from our television history, such as most of 'Hamelin' and 'Ja Zuster Nee Zuster'. The question is whether the cabinet now wants to throw away our film history too.

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