The exhibitions of the 30th edition of the Bayeux Calvados-Normandie Prize for War Correspondents, chaired by legendary British photographer Don McCullin, open their doors on Monday ahead of the awards ceremony on October 15. On the program for the week: eight exhibitions, five thematic evenings, six screenings and the inscription of 40 new names on the stele of reporters killed on mission in the past year. The 30th edition of the Bayeux Prize will return in detail to the 1944 landings with the exhibition “The Other Landing, the War Correspondents in Normandy”. More than three hundred journalists were accredited for the largest amphibious military operation in history, the adventure of which will be told through portraits, unpublished and revisited documents, black and white and color images, personal correspondence, unique radio reports and objects original.
Also read: Don McCullin, the photo warrior
“Ukraine: Front Lines” will immerse visitors in the harsh reality of the conflict. They will also be able to discover the comic book work of four Iranian cartoonists chosen by Marjane Satrapi to tell the story of the current uprising among the youth of their country. Congo, Syria, Tunisia will also have their place in photos in the capital of Bessin.
On the projection side, “Afghans” will describe in video women “muzzled, prisoners caged under their burqa, eternal victims of the barbarity of the Taliban”, Israel, Ukraine and Mexico-United States migration also find their place in documentary. A selection of photos by Don McCullin, president of the jury for this edition, will be exhibited in the streets of Bayeux from October 9 to November 12. Aged 87, he devoted his career to photographing, mainly in black and white, war and more broadly the condition of the poor, the destitute and the victims. Winner of the British Press Award in 1961 for his coverage of the construction of the Berlin Wall, and of the World Press Photo in 1964 for the emerging Cypriot intercommunity conflict, this Briton brought back photos of all the conflicts of his time: Vietnam, Cambodia, Congo, Israel, Biafra, Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Iran… Without forgetting the poverty in which he grew up and which he explored again, in popular and marginal circles, each time he returned home. He will be responsible for directing the work of the jury, whose winners in print, television, photography and radio will be revealed on the evening of Saturday October 15. On October 12, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) will pay tribute to the 40 journalists killed on mission over the past year during a ceremony at the Reporters’ Memorial with the inscription of their names on a new stele, including that of the reporter from AFP Arman Soldin.