When we announced our 2025 dates back in October last year they matched the annual early May timing. That has become our ‘new normal’ since our post-lockdown relaunch and we have been working with increasing pace to deliver MIAF 2025 on schedule.
Late last week ACMI elected to launch a major anime festival which they scheduled to run in the same week as MIAF 2025. As a volunteer-run organisation which receives no federal nor state funding we simply do not have the resilience to withstand the impact we believe this competing event would have on us.
The forced MIAF cancellations in 2020 and 2021 compounded by the decision in 2022 by Screen Australia to not continue funding us changed the DNA of our festival. The MIAF you have all enjoyed in recent years may well be the result of my on-going contribution as its programmer. But it exists as an event purely because of the work that Michael Hunt (MIAF’s Production Manager) and his growing team of incredible, dedicated volunteers have done – and are doing – to create not just a compelling celebration of animation but a viable event. They have worked too hard to rebuild MIAF – still very much a work in progress – to see that work dented or destroyed.
It was very clear to us that holding to our original dates would damage – perhaps even terminally – our viability as an event. We felt we had little choice but to move MIAF. With the help and support of our two key venues we have had the extraordinary luck to be able to reschedule MIAF 2025 to May 18-25. We feel this option causes the least disruption to all involved.
There are an astonishing number of moving parts to a festival such as MIAF. Any changes of this magnitude are going to impact some people. If you are one of those people we extend a sincere apology and hope that everyone understands this unusual, significant alteration was one we felt we had no choice but to make.
The good news, however, is that this ‘flat tire’ is ultimately just a pit-stop and we continue to work on delivering a wonderfully eclectic and diverse MIAF 2025.
Opening night – as usual – is going to be our double-barrelled celebration of Australian animation at the Treasury Theatre on May 18th… see you there!
Malcolm Turner
MIAF Artistic Director
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