Festival Without Its Director: Visa pour l’Image Takes Up Its Founder’s Legacy

Visa pour l’Image is opening its professional week in Perpignan without the man who created it nearly four decades ago. Jean-François Leroy died of cancer on Monday morning at the age of 69, shortly before the festival’s 38th edition.

Leroy continued working on this year’s program despite his illness, according to general director Delphine Lelu. His absence gives the festival a new focus: the event is now celebrating photojournalism while confronting the loss of its founder.

Visa pour l’Image remains more than a sequence of exhibitions. Photojournalists, picture editors and agencies use the Perpignan gathering as an annual industry meeting. Portfolio presentations take place at the Palais des Congrès, while agency activity has shrunk as many picture agencies have disappeared. Informal conversations in the city’s cafés have consequently become more important.

Reportage photography is displayed throughout central Perpignan, including work that has found less space in magazines. More than 60 photographers will present projects on a large screen over six evenings. The program includes NZZ photographer Dominic Nahr’s series from Sudan’s Nuba Mountains and on minorities in Syria.

The festival uses uniform frames for its photographs, a long-criticized presentation that puts the images’ content ahead of display. Lelu called Leroy the "soul" of Visa and promised that Perpignan would remain a beacon for photojournalists. Whether the institution can retain its strength without its founder remains an open question, as freelance photojournalists face increasing difficulty relying on newspaper and magazine assignments alone.

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