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.

Doisneau des villes, Doisneau des champs by Patrick Cazals, 1993, (55′)

Released one year before his death, this film is a documentary marking 20 years of friendship. Doisneau is back in Paris – with his close friends  Maurice Baquet and Robert Giraud – where they revisit their favorite bistrots and the banks of the river Seine. His biographer,  Peter Hamilton, the filmaker Sylvain Roumette and the actress Juliette Binoche reminisce fondly about the world of Doisneau. The film is a walk down memory lane – unfettered from nostalgia – and talks tenderly about how each photograph of Doisneau is a lesson in humility and humanity.

Man Ray, Monsieur 6 secondes by Jean-Paul Fargier, 1998  (53′)

Great painter and photographer, Man Ray was mainly active for some years as a portrait and fashion photographer and as a pioneer of new photographic techniques such as rayographs, solarizations and assemblage-objects.  He met French artist Marcel Duchamp, and together they collaborated on many inventions and formed the New York group of Dada artists. Ray later became associated with the Surrealist circle of artists and writers. This portrait of Man Ray tries to show the prolific genius of this “dreamer gifted with a sense of pragmatism”.

In partnership with Focus Photo Festival