On the occasion of FOCUS Festival 2015, Alliance Française de Bombay, with the support of Institut Français de Paris, will present documentaries on some of the greatest French photographers of all time : Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Raymond Depardon… and the American, Man Ray.

A look back at 20th century offering a retrospective of contemporary pieces which can inspire modern artists for whom the possibilities of exchange and information multiply at the same pace as the flow of information, images and population.

Willy ronis posterWilly Ronis, autoportrait d’un photographe  by Michel Toutain, 2003, (55′)

For seventy-six years, Willy Ronis photographed himself every year. The first self-portrait was taken when he was sixteen the last, at the age of ninety-two. These self-portraits create the framework for this film, in which Willy Ronis talks about himself, his art and his career. He shares stories of the moments before pressing the trigger and analyses some of his best known photographs which sealed his place in photographic history.

2009_07_24_raymond_depardon Les années Déclic  by Roger Ikhlef, 1984 (65′)

In Les années déclic (The Declic Years, a pun on the sound of a camera shutter), Depardon presents himself—photographs taken over twenty years; excerpts from his films; and, behind it all, his image—for consideration, creating a powerful, lonely, and gripping autobiographical tour. Depardon’s examination of issues and questions in photography and journalism permeates his work, prompting Cahiers du cinéma’s Louis Marcorelles to write of Depardon’s auteur complex. The camera is his alter ego, a mirror along the road as Stendhal said of the novel, and a mirror in the Cocteau tradition, Narcissus’s perfect tool.

In partnership with Focus Photo Festival