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From Kyiv to Kabul: AFP at Visa pour l'Image 2022
The work of AFP photographers will be on display at the 34th edition of the Visa Pour L’Image - International Photojournalism Festival in Perpignan from 26 August to 11 September. Coverages featured will range from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan and migrants trying to cross from France to Britain.
The 2022 edition of Visa pour l'Image will feature 24 exhibitions and six evening screenings as well as debates, conferences and meetings. The work of AFP photographers will be widely represented as the festival looks back on a particularly intense year.
Two exhibitions will feature AFP photographers
- Sergeï Supinsky: Ukraine, from Independence to War
A retrospective of Sergei Supinsky’s coverage of Ukraine, first for local media, then for the epa photo agency, and finally for AFP since 2003. It includes his coverage of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the birth of Ukraine independence, the country’s fraught relationship with Russia as it moved closer politically to the West, and the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022.
From Kyiv to Odessa via Chernobyl, Sergei Supinsky, 66, has tirelessly documented the history of his country, which has been both calm and tumultuous. He has displayed a particular eye for capturing images of ordinary people, whether they are peasants returning to live illegally near the Chernobyl power plant or civilians wielding ersatz cardboard automatic rifles in preparation for the Russian invasion.
A meeting with Sergeï Supinsky and fellow Ukrainian photographers Mstyslav Chernov and Evgeniy Maloletka of the AP will be held on Saturday 3 September at the Palais des Congrès from 11.30am to 1pm. It will be moderated by Caroline Laurent-Simon.
- Sameer Al-Doumy: Fatal Crossings
Al-Doumy won the 2022 ICRC Humanitarian Visa d’or Award for his portfolio Fatal Crossings, an epic tale of migrants' attempts to cross the Channel from France to Britain.
Sameer began working as a video journalist for local media in Syria in 2011, covering the start of the anti-government uprising. His collaboration with AFP began when he spent four years covering the Syrian government’s siege of the Eastern Ghouta region, including in his home town of Douma. His work earned him 1st prize in the Spot News stories category of the 2016 World Press Photo awards. Forced to leave Syria in 2018, al-Doumy, 24, is a staff photographer at the AFP office in Lille and covers northern France.
A meeting featuring Al-Doumy and Frédéric Joly, ICRC spokesperson in France, and moderated by Caroline Laurent-Simon, will be held on Thursday 1 September at the Palais des Congrès from 12 noon to 1pm,
All the exhibitions will be open to the public from 10am to 8pm, every day, from 27 August to 11 September 2022.
An AFP conference:
- Thursday 1 September at 16h15 - Russia-Ukraine, an information war: reporting and checking.
A conference on the information war in Ukraine moderated by Phil Chetwynd, AFP's Global News Director, and Grégoire Lemarchand, the agency's Chief Editor for Digital Verification. They will discuss how coverage by photographers in war zones and the work of digital investigative journalists in verifying online content increasingly complement each other.
Three AFP screenings:
- Wednesday 31 August at 21h30 - Oli Scarff's So British, which looks at the eccentricity of Her Majesty's subjects in the north of England.
- Friday 2 September at 21h30 - A focus on the war in Ukraine, highlighting the agency's coverage of the conflict, including images by Aris Messinis. The evening will also feature images by Alexis Huguet of the conflict in the province of Ituri in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Saturday 3 September at 21h30 - Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban, featuring the agency's coverage of the fall of Kabul and the departure of US forces a year ago.
