Bucharest Photofest returns from October 9 to 18 with more than 200 artists and 40 events across ten venues in the Romanian capital. This year’s theme, “Witness,” explores photography as a form of social and cultural engagement.
The programme includes work documenting the siege of Mariupol by Ukrainian photographer Evgeniy Maloletka, the human experience of war and crisis by Iranian artist Toulo Adl Parvar, and displacement through the lens of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Vedad Divović.
The festival opens at Point on October 9 with Witness: Images That Refuse to Forget, a collective exhibition featuring photographers commissioned by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. The opening night will also include a screening of Minamata, starring Johnny Depp as American photojournalist W. Eugene Smith.
Photography-related films will continue at Cinema Union on October 16 and 17. The selection includes Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, An Underground Bird, Finding the Landscape, Forgetting, KIN, and In Passing, followed by a discussion with Lithuanian director Gailė Garnelytė.
Kulturhaus will serve as the festival’s central venue, hosting seven exhibitions and artist-led tours. These include Adl Parvar’s Displacement (Ghorbat), Joakim Kocjancic’s SOLVARV, Chiara Ernandes’ Still Birth, Divović’s Home of the Perpetually Lost, Sigurður Ólafur Sigurðsson’s Reykjanes Awakens, and Maloletka’s Witnessing the War.
Evgeniy Maloletka, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, will also lead a workshop on war photography. Other educational events include workshops with Vedad Divović, Sigurður Ólafur Sigurðsson, and British photographer Justin Quinnell, as well as a photography walk through Bucharest led by Joakim Kocjancic.
A children’s programme developed with Save the Children will address bullying, exclusion, emotional difficulties, violence, displacement, and separation from parents. The resulting work will be presented at ARCUB on October 15 in the exhibition In Plain Sight, focusing on children’s rights and adults’ responsibility to respond.
Moreover, ARCUB will also host the Bucharest Photofest Conference on October 14, bringing together photographers, cultural managers, and other professionals from Romania and abroad.
The programme also features photography book presentations, projections, DJ sets, and informal meetings.
The closing event will take place at Control Club on October 18 and will include David Burlacu’s exhibition CTRL 18. Countless Versions of Becoming, a DJ set, and a live concert by Romanian band The Speakers.
Founded in 2016, Bucharest Photofest is organised by the independent Centre for Alternative Music & Arts. During its first decade, the festival presented more than 1,000 artists and over 300 events.
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