The festival encompasses a large number of works across a wide swath of categories and genres.
By BARRY DAVIS
The third annual International Photography Festival will take place April 5-19. This year the event will be held at a new, spacious venue: the Carmel Winery in Rishon Lezion.The festival encompasses a large number of works across a wide swath of categories and genres. All told 1,000 pictures, by 265 photographers, will be on display over the 15 days, divided into 25 exhibitions in 15 display halls.The theme of this year’s festival is Photographic Memory and focuses on the photographers themselves. Some of our top artists curated their own exhibitions, as well as the works of fellow photographers, both from Israel and from around the world. The foreign display section includes the Imagine Finding Me show by Japanese photographer Chino Otsuka, Memories from the Future by Jean-François Lepage from France, and Niko J. Kallianiotis from Greece and American photographer Perry Manuk, whose works are featured in the Americana exhibition.This year’s festival themes include a community project which portrays life among Ethiopian olim, an exhibition of works shot by photographers with special needs and a definitively street-level show of portraits taken by residents of Rishon Lezion.The program also features a conference called the Intellectual Memory of Photography, which will take place in conjunction with Harvard University. The conference will examine a range of topics, such as documentation and archiving, and the speaker and discussion panel roster includes academics, researchers, collectors and professional photographers.Members of the audience will also be given an opportunity to air their views on the state of photography in Israel.For tickets and more information: 9066, www.eventim.co.il and www.photographyfestival.co.il