20th Visa pour l’Image – Perpignan

Twenty years? Already!
I have the feeling that it was only yesterday when we first said “Let’s set up a new festival, just for photojournalism.” People laughed and sneered – “They’re crazy! Who the hell do they think they are?” They couldn’t believe it – “It’ll be a op.” They were apprehensive – “OK, the idea’s appealing, but they’ll never make the distance.” And there was encouragement – “Why not set up a press center, so that agencies and photographers can have official meetings and official discussions of their plans?” There were promises too. And so the years have gone by.
The event soon became a regular date, a place for rediscoveries, and discoveries, to con rm opinions, express enthusiasm, see things go wrong, have doubts, and also rm convictions, plus genuine passion, and even more passion. There is the passion and devotion of an entire team, a ne example of loyalty and commitment.
There’s the passion and devotion of the photographers, and the passionate enthusiasm for photographers.
There have been exhibitions (more than 600), evening shows (120), and the move to digital technology (in 2005). A symposium has been added. A whole world has formed. The years have gone by, shaped by and revolving around that one week, the first week of September.
It is a whole lifetime. Twenty years? Is that all?

Jean-François Leroy

EXHIBITIONS
Agence France-Presse – Twenty years covering the world 1989-2008
Nina Berman – Homeland, USA
Philip Blenkinsop – Tales from the yellow riverbank, June 2008
Alexandra Boulat – Come on! Come on!
Paula Bronstein – Afghanistan, a fragile peace
Grand Prix CARE : Stéphanie Sinclair – Excision in Indonesia
Enrico Dagnino – Kenya – Post-electoral violence
Axelle de Russé – China : the return of the concubine
Marie Dorigny – A long way from Gandhi
David Douglas Duncan – This is war
Horst Faas – 50 years of photojournalism
Cédric Gerbehaye – Congo in Limbo
Pierre Gonnord – The portrait test
Jan Grarup – Darfur and Chad – A silent genocide
Stanley Green – The road to ruin : drugs ans disease
Yuri Kozyrev – Inside Iraq
Pascal Maitre – A saint in hell …in the great lakes region
Michael Nichols – The roots of heaven
Paolo Pellegrin – The Iraqi diaspora
Christian Poveda – La vida loca
Noël Quidu – Nepal. Vishnu and/or Mao, vive la république
Patrick Robert – Freedom & struggle in exile
Göksin Sipahioglu – GS 68 – May 1968
Brent Stirton – Virunga National Park, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, July 2007
Kadir van Lohuizen – America’s Unseen Humanitarian Crisis – the Katrina Aftermath
Munem Wasif – Bangladesh, standing on the edge
Alfred Yaghobzadeh – religious minorities in Iran
International Daily Press
World Press Photo

Visa d’or
Visa d’or News Award: Philip Blenkinsop
Visa d’or Feature Award: Brent Stirton
Visa d’or Daily Press Award: The Dallas Morning News (USA)

Awards
Canon Female Photojournalist Award: Brenda Ann Kenneally
City of Perpignan Young Reporter Award:: Munem Wasif
CARE International Award for Humanitarian Reportage: Stéphanie Sinclair
Pierre & Alexandra Boulat Award: Jean Chung