Bucharest Photofest 2025 – Legacy as Practice, Recap
Bucharest Photofest 2025 marked the tenth edition of the festival, unfolding over ten days, from 10 to 19 October, as a platform dedicated to photography, film, and contemporary visual practices. Shaped around the theme Legacy, this anniversary edition invited both contributors and audiences to reflect on continuity, transmission, and the long-term role of images in shaping cultural memory and critical thought.
Conceived not as a single-format event but as a multi-layered cultural framework, the 2025 edition brought together exhibitions, film screenings, talks, workshops, and live events across multiple venues in Bucharest. Over the course of the festival, the public program comprised 44 events, articulating a rhythm that balanced moments of intensity with spaces for dialogue, encounter, and reflection.
As we reflect on the tenth edition of Bucharest Photofest, themed Legacy, we see it as a reminder of our journey rather than a conclusion. What has endured is not just a programme or format, but a vibrant community of artists, partners, and audiences who recognise the importance of this platform. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who contributed to this edition, whether through contributions, trust, presence, or dialogue. This festival thrived thanks to you.
At the core of the festival program were exhibitions and film screenings, which formed the backbone of the agenda and provided a sustained engagement with photographic and moving-image practices.
These were complemented by discursive and educational formats – lectures, panel discussions, workshops, and live events – designed to expand the conversation beyond presentation and toward interpretation, exchange, and critical inquiry.
Bucharest Photofest 2025 presented the work of over 200 artists through exhibitions and screenings. Alongside this broader artistic presence, 40 special guests – artists, researchers, and cultural practitioners – participated directly in the festival through on-site and online contributions. This distinction reflects the festival’s dual structure: one that supports the visibility of a wide range of artistic voices, while also fostering direct dialogue through personal participation.
Contributors represented 21 countries, underscoring the festival’s international dimension while maintaining a strong connection to the local and regional context. This balance between local grounding and international exchange continues to define Bucharest Photofest as a platform situated at the intersection of regional specificity and global circulation.
This overview’s data provides information about the 2025 edition’s scope, organisation, and geographic reach. However, a festival’s experience, interpretation, and memory cannot be fully explained by numbers alone. For Bucharest Photofest, each edition is understood as part of a longer process – one that values evaluation, listening, and adaptation as integral components of cultural practice.
Audience feedback, alongside dialogue with artists and partners, plays a crucial role in this process. It allows the festival to reflect not only on what was presented, but on how it was perceived, how spaces functioned, and how meaning was produced through encounter. In this sense, evaluation is not an administrative exercise, but a continuation of the festival’s conceptual and ethical commitments.
Many people and organisations collaborated to make Bucharest Photofest 2025 a success.
We expressed our gratitude to the artists whose work influenced that edition, to the special guests who interacted with audiences directly, and to our partners, sponsors, and collaborators whose support sustained the festival in all its facets.
As we considered the tenth edition, we honoured and acknowledged the mutual responsibility, enduring cooperation, and trust that had grown over time.
Here are some behind-the-scenes photos that capture the atmosphere, beauty of the events, and beautiful people who attended the programme.
To fully enjoy the gallery and have a better experience, click the button above to explore the entire album with more pictures.
