The 16th edition of Planches Contact, Deauville's renowned contemporary photography festival, opened with a focus on intimacy as its central theme, featuring twenty selected artists who explored the invisible connections between spaces, personal narratives, and memories. Running from October 22, 2025, through January 5, 2026, this year's festival challenged photographers to reveal what lies behind appearances and capture the unseen elements of human experience.
Deauville has maintained an intimate and privileged relationship with visual storytellers for sixteen years, thanks to Mayor Philippe Augier's vision of establishing a lasting creative partnership between the city and visual artists. The festival has become a significant event for photography enthusiasts, recognized for its bold approach and commitment to artist residencies. Rather than simply documenting reality, photography at Planches Contact invents new ways of seeing, collecting and composing pieces of Normandy to open windows onto the region.
Since its inception, more than 170 artists have explored Deauville's diverse landscapes, from the iconic wooden boardwalks to the inland countryside, from cozy interiors to windswept seasides. As Susan Sontag described it, images are pieces of the world, miniatures of reality, and the festival embodies this philosophy by allowing photographers to cut and compose fragments of their surroundings into meaningful visual narratives.
This year's festival featured notable guest photographers including Lin Zhipeng, Myriam Boulos, Carline Bourdelas, Renato D'Agostin, Julien Magre, Anna Malarida, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Henrike Stahl, and Frédéric Stucin. The Young Photographic Creation Award candidates included Jérémy Appert, Simon Bouillère, Naïma Lecomte, and Anaïs Ondet, while artists supported by the photo4food foundation grant comprised Daniel Blaufuks, Adrien Boyer, Amélie Chassary, and Marilia Destot.
The 16th edition introduced several significant changes, beginning with new artistic direction entrusted to Jonas Tebibet for the art market and Lionel Charrier for press relations, bringing fresh perspectives to the festival. The visitor experience was completely redesigned, taking place across various iconic city locations including Les Franciscaines and Le Point de Vue, as well as outdoor venues such as the beach and Quai de l'Impératrice Eugénie. However, this outdoor approach presented challenges, as demonstrated when strong winds forced the removal of Frédéric Stucin's installation on the day of the press visit.
The festival expanded its international reach with an off-site residency sharing the same intimacy theme, led by Myriam Boulos of Magnum Photos in Beirut. This global perspective reinforced Planches Contact's commitment to exploring universal themes through diverse cultural lenses and artistic approaches.
Young creators received strengthened support through the overhauled Young Photographic Creation Award program, which features an expanded jury and new chairmanship under Rima Abdul-Malak. On October 26, Naïma Lecomte won the prize and will benefit from an exhibition during the InCadaqués festival, while the Jury Prize winner received a residency at Villa Pérochon, Centre d'art contemporain photographique de Niort. Samuel Becker served as guest of honor, offering a curated selection of books exploring the theme of intimacy.
Planches Contact demonstrates strong commitment to social causes through its partnership with the photo4food foundation since 2020, which funds meals for disadvantaged individuals while increasing photography residencies and enriching the festival program. Four artists received foundation support to create works exhibited at the festival and subsequently sold to benefit the Red Cross. An auction during the opening weekend offered 24 prints from the residencies, while a Solidarity Boutique allows visitors to purchase works from previous editions at fixed prices.
According to its founder, Planches Contact serves as "a dense and lively festival" that offers "a moment of respite in a world saturated with images and videos that follow one another, distract us, but ultimately deprive us of the time to observe, understand, and feel." The festival invites visitors to Deauville to breathe in the sea spray and experience what the founder calls "the precious smell of time regained," providing space for contemplation in an increasingly fast-paced visual world.
