Raymond Depardon, Communes

Born in 1942 in Villefranche-sur-Saône. Lives in Clamart. Filmmaker and photographer Raymond Depardon occupies a unique place in the field of contemporary images. Co-founder of the Gamma agency in 1967, he joined the Magnum agency in 1978 and covered stories all over the world until the early 1980s. Thereafter, while maintaining his daily practice of photography, he shot direct cinema documentary films. Raymond Depardon puts still and moving images to the service of a simple and unique style. From the first images taken in the early 1960s to his most recent trips to Africa and the USA, Raymond Depardon’s work is characterized by a profoundly human approach. In 2010, he presented the exhibition La France de Raymond Depardon at the Bibliothèque nationale de France François-Mitterrand in Paris, in 2013, the exhibition Un moment si doux at the Grand Palais in Paris, and in 2019. Raymond Depardon has directed with Claudine Nougaret many films for the cinema including Urgences (1988), La Captive du désert (1990), Délits flagrants (1994), 1974 Une partie de campagne (2002), Un homme sans l’occident (2003), 10e chambre, instants d’audiences (2004), La Vie moderne (2008), Journal de France (2012), Les Habitants (2016) and 12 jours (2017). For the Fondation Cartier, they have collaborated on a dozen exhibitions, leading to the installations of their films: Amours (1997), Déserts (2000), Chasseurs et Chamans (2003), 7 x 3 (2004), Donner la parole (2008), Au bonheur des Maths (2011), 8e étage (2014) and Mon arbre (2019).

Raymond Depardon has also published more than sixty photography books.