Every late summer, the French city of Perpignan transforms into the world's stage for international photojournalism. The annual Visa pour l'Image festival presents images that tell stories of destruction, suffering, and loss, yet within them, moments of resilience and hope emerge with striking clarity.
In a world marked by armed conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan, where the sense that everything is falling apart has become a global mood, this festival brings together an industry whose daily work takes place at the world's margins—where order is fragile and storytelling can become dangerous. The festival has pursued a dual mission since its founding: presenting and honoring the documentary work of photographers whose images are often created under life-threatening conditions for major news agencies and newspapers, while creating visibility for issues that lie beyond routine media coverage.
The festival showcases and awards outstanding positions, grants project funding, and honors lifetime achievements with a program that never merely documents but claims to take a stance. Critics have long accompanied the festival, arguing that Visa pour l'Image is too dark, too brutal, too close to despair. The images of violence, flight, and war dominated even in times that now seem almost peaceful in retrospect.
Yet paradoxically, many of these images possess an almost unbearable beauty. They show tenderness in chaos, closeness amid destruction. Perhaps this is precisely the power of these images: not only making reality visible but fostering hope that it can be changed. In an era when free press is guaranteed in fewer and fewer countries, those who use their freedom to go where others cannot or will not look deserve attention.
The 26 exhibitions and two guest exhibitions remain free to view in Perpignan's old town through September 14. French photographer Sandra Calligaro documents the separate worlds of life under Taliban rule in her exhibition "Afghanistan: In the shadow of the white flags (2021-2025)." For four years, the Taliban have been back in power in Afghanistan. After two decades of relative openness, this means a drastic setback for the urban population, especially for women. They are largely excluded from public life, cannot attend secondary schools, and can barely pursue gainful employment.
Calligaro's photographs capture seventeen-year-old Fahima learning in her family's living room, participating in an online course accessed through her smartphone. Another image shows Sonia Niazi, a presenter for private broadcaster Tolo News, adjusting her veil between two news programs. Women must now cover their faces even on television, with men required to enforce this rule in their households or face sanctions.
French photographer Gaëlle Girbes, winner of the Prix Pierre & Alexandra Boulat, documents daily life in war-torn Ukraine. Since the Russian attack on February 24, 2022, large parts of Ukraine have been destroyed. According to a February 2025 report, almost 30 percent of the country's territory is devastated and mined, with 4.6 million people having lost their homes. Despite the ongoing war, many try to survive in the ruins or attempt a new beginning from them.
Girbes' powerful images include Larissa, her daughter, and neighbors trying to extinguish a fire heading toward their houses, spreading rapidly with exploding unexploded ordnance, forgotten ammunition, and mines in Kamianka, Kharkiv Oblast. Another photograph shows Elena leaving her house to fetch drinking water brought by Pastor Oleg, the only remaining helper in the completely destroyed city of Vuhledar.
Deanne Fitzmaurice of the San Francisco Chronicle presents "Lionheart: The Story of Saleh," a remarkable long-term documentation spanning over 20 years. Saleh was nine years old when he was seriously injured during the US invasion of Iraq. A mine he picked up while playing exploded, and while he survived, he lost both hands and one eye. He received his nickname "Lionheart" because his heart stopped seven times during surgery, yet he survived.
Fitzmaurice's photographs trace his journey from an injured child who received medical treatment in the United States to a young man building a new life there as a disabled refugee. The most recent images show him with his son, roughly the same age Saleh was when he was injured. The series includes intimate moments from December 2003 of Saleh's father Raheem comforting him in his hospital bed until he falls asleep, while worrying about his wife and other children in Iraq.
Photographer Anush Babajanyan documents the dramatic transformation of the Aral Sea and the resilience of people living on its shores in "After the Aral Sea." Despite its near-complete disappearance, water sources still exist that provide hope. Her visual journey shows how residents are building a new future on the former seabed through reforestation, sustainable fishing, and agriculture. Her striking images include camels standing by a salt lake near the city of Aral in Kazakhstan in 2025—once a seaport, Aral now lies 50 kilometers from the nearest shore of the Aral Sea.
Paloma Laudet's exhibition "DRC: Life under the M23" addresses the conflict that has shaken eastern Democratic Republic of Congo for almost 30 years and has intensified again since 2021. On January 27, 2025, the armed group M23 took control of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province with over two million inhabitants. The population has suffered from the consequences of war for generations, leaving them only with hope for lasting peace. Her photographs capture families of internally displaced persons in Mugunga camp, where fighting in recent months and years has driven almost 650,000 people into unsanitary camps near Goma.
The festival also honors lifetime achievements through the work of Stephen Shames and Jean-Louis Courtinat, who have dedicated decades to social issues and the life realities of people on society's margins. Shames has documented the lives of children and families worldwide for over fifty years, addressing social grievances such as violence, poverty, and exclusion while also showing interpersonal closeness, hope, and solidarity. Courtinat has photographed people threatened by illness, isolation, or death for over forty years, approaching his subjects with great restraint and making their often overlooked life realities visible.
The ICRC Humanitarian Visa d'Or Award, presented by the International Committee of the Red Cross, went to Palestinian photojournalist Saher Alghorra for "There is no escape. Gaza, October 2023 to May 2025." The twenty-eight-year-old, whose images appear in international media including the New York Times, Guardian, and Time Magazine, documents the daily struggle for survival in Gaza. His powerful photographs include masses of Palestinians who had previously been displaced to southern Gaza returning north after Israel allowed them to return to their city for the first time since the early weeks of the war against Hamas.
French photographer Marion Péhée received the 25th annual Canon Female Photojournalist Grant, allowing her to return to Ukraine and reconnect with young people she photographed ten years ago in Shchastia (Donbas)—now adults in a country at war. German photographer Ingmar Björn Nolting received the Yves Rocher Foundation Photography Award to continue working on the impacts of the climate crisis in Germany. His work includes protesters blocking a bucket-wheel excavator by occupying an area at the edge of the Garzweiler II opencast mine near Lützerath.
The prestigious Visa d'Or awards for News and Daily Press went to New York Times photographers Ivor Prickett and Daniel Berehulak for their work on the battle for Khartoum and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. Among the Daily Press Award nominees was German photographer Frank Röth for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, who documented Rock am Ring, Germany's most famous rock festival, showing rock fans shopping at the Lidl Rock Store at the Nürburgring festival.
