Fellowships Programme

The Fellowships Programme, established in 2023, is designed for mid-career makers who are engaged in a research project within the field of Digital Culture. With this programme, makers and/or collectives are encouraged to explore new technologies, themes and tools, and initiate collaborations. Between 2023 and 2025, three fellows will work on their research proposals every year, which they will then present during the Netherlands Film Festival (NFF).

Following a selection, three makers/collectives a year will be given the space to deliver a research proposal at the intersection of society and technology within the disciplines of science, visual art, film, gaming, design or other types of visual culture. Each year the research concludes with a report of the research results. After three years, the Fellowships Programme is completed and the results are published on the NFF website.

Fellows of 2025 - 2026

Luna Maurer

Nirit Peled

Matthew C. Wilson

Fellows of 2024 - 2025

Radical Data

Simone C. Niquille

Victorine van Alphen

In Conversation with Victorine van Alphen

A.I. seems to be rapidly becoming one of the most overrated/underestimated/
discussed/exploited technologies. From utopia to dystopia and everything in between. One person who does not settle for ready-made opinions or juicy scenarios circulated by (social) media is artist and Golden Calf winner Victorine van Alphen. With her installation The Oracle: Ritual for the Future, Victorine explores what generative AI means for us.

Read the interview here

In Conversation with Simone C Niquille

Simone C Niquille is a researcher and designer who joined the Fellowships Programme with her research project Chair Don’t Care. With Chair Don’t Care, Niquille investigates the boundaries of storytelling with and about machine learning. While the character Chair wanders through a seemingly simple environment, it turns out that navigation is no easy task. In fact, Chair Don’t Care is a study of computer vision, and how the computer’s gaze sees and influences our world.

Read the interview here

In Conversation with Radical Data

For Radical Data, the artist and design collective of Jo Kroese and Rayen Mitrovich, this statement forms the starting point of their work. With their research entitled Applied Science Fiction, they are searching not just for ‘fixing tech’, but for ways to spark political imagination - building alternative futures, stories, and possibilities. It's a reaction to our collective difficulty imagining alternatives.

Read the interview here

Listen to the stories of the NFF Fellows 2024 - 2025

Fellows of 2023 - 2024

ARK

Špela Petrič

Tina Farifteh

ARK on their Fellowship research and experience

The notion that an artwork has only one creator, where the individual artist with their unique artistic vision and style defines the work, is gradually changing. Techniques are becoming more complex – think of AI – and demand multidisciplinary approaches. Long live the collective!

ARK is such a collective: an international and interdisciplinary group of designers, artists, creative technologists, musicians, and researchers, who strive to make technologies more democratic and fairer.

Read the interview here

Špela Petrič on her Fellowship research and experience

We are being flooded by AI: how dangerous is it, and how will it shape our society? Her research asks what humans would look like if they were made “healthier” by AI. She starts in a place where AI is already being deployed: tomato farming.

Read the Dutch interview here

Tina Farifteh on her Fellowship research and experience

Her research proposal Empathic Rage, written for the 2023 Fellowship Programme, is about how to use empathy and anger to save the world.

Read the interview here

News

In Conversation with the NFF Fellows: Radical Data

In Conversation with the NFF Fellows: Simone C Niquille

In Conversation with the NFF Fellows: Victorine van Alphen

Netherlands Film Festival welcomes new interdisciplinary…

Netherlands Film Festival welcomes new cohort of…

ARK on their Fellowship research and experience

Tina Farifteh about her Fellowship research and experience

Selection Digital Culture Fellowships 2023

Announcing the Golden Calf Digital Culture 2024 selection

Rules & Regulations

As a fellow you will receive a fee of €20.000,- and a working budget of €5.000,-. The duration of the second Fellowships Programme is from September 2024 up to and including September 2025. The track consists of three milestone meetings, three Fieldtrips and several meetings with specialists, guests and the other Fellows. The research period concludes with the presentation of the work during the Storyspace exhibition that will take place during the festival in the main hall of Neude Library. Your research will be shared with the sector through the communication channel of NFF.

Registrations for 2025 have been closed since april 20th.

FAQ Fellowships

What are the Fellowships?: The NFF has established a three-year programme in which a trio of artists/creators can spend a year working on a research proposal formulated by themselves, under the guidance of self-selected mentors and the NFF.
For whom are the Fellowships intended?: For mid-career makers who seek space from an interdisciplinary professional practice to conduct research at the intersection of technology, society and Storytelling.
Where will the outcomes of the Fellowships be displayed?: The results will be presented at the Storyspace exhibition that will take place in the Central Hall of Neude Library during the festival.

Collaboration image sector

The Fellowships Programme would not be possible without the support of Gieskes-Strijbis Fund, Creative Humanities Academy of Utrecht University and the Institute of Sound & Vision (Beeld & Geluid).