AFMP III: ANNUAL FOTOFILMIC MENTORING PROGRAM (MAY 2025 – APRIL 2026)

REGISTRATIONS ARE CLOSED.

VISION

Purpose-built for photographers at crucial crossroads in their artistic development and forming careers, AFMP III will offer a small group of practitioners a robust and proven, in-depth, year-long mentoring framework to materialize their fullest potential through the creation of their most ambitious bodies of work to date, and through combined final gallery presentations and an accompanying catalog publication with broad international diffusion receive a unique community platform to secure successful photographic futures.

STRUCTURE

The AFMP III program will revolve around two intensive physical retreats with the core mentors: the first one in May (2025) on beautiful Bowen Island, BC at the FotoFilmic Space; and the second one in November (2025) in Paris, France, where two additional guest reviewers* (tba) join in to contribute fresh outside feedback on all developing projects midway through the program. Participants also receive a day pass to attend the Paris Photo fair, the largest international art fair dedicated to the photographic medium, and get the chance to tour the countless other prime photographic events taking place in Paris during that special photography week.

In addition to the in-person retreats, a comprehensive, well structured online schedule (nearly 50 hours total) comprising a multitude of both group and individual monthly meetings with the core mentors and select guest contributors facilitates continued conversations and ensures constant input and progress the rest of the year (fall 2025, and Spring 2026). See the full schedule details below!

* Past guest reviewers have included: Lucy Conticello (M Le Monde Magazine Director of Photography), Carolyn Drake, Katy Hundertmark (Foam Magazine Managing Editor), Mimi Plumb, and Clementine Schneidermann.

OUTCOMES

With tailored guidance from the core mentors and their collaborators every step of the way, the goal for each participant will be to conceive and develop a new significant body of work to represent them ambitiously for years to come. The work will embody meaningful commentary on our contemporary moment and reality, speak to the world’s state of affairs and its pressing issues, and as such remain foundational to their artistic identity on the international photography scene for the foreseable future. Acting as their true passport for opportunity and growth as professional photographic artists, the creation of their AFMP III work will also drive a profound reshaping of the participants’ practices as they successfully connect to their true artistic ethos and purpose, and build the foundation and ability to execute equally ambitious future projects.

This third AFMP edition will culminate in 2 featured gallery exhibitions on Bowen Island (Summer 2025) and in Paris (late Fall 2025), accompanied by an original printed catalog spearheaded by renowned book artist and AFMP III mentor Christian Patterson to be distributed generously throughout the FotoFilmic network to prominent editors, publishers, curators, writers and programmers of contemporary photographic culture around the world (North America, Europe, and Asia). The exhibitions and publication will help forge a multitude of lasting connections with influential figures of the photo world, built from the start to evolve into concrete future opportunities for work, collaboration, publication, and friendship.

MENTORS: ELISA MEDDE | STACY KRANITZ | CHRISTIAN PATTERSON

Leading photography editor and curator Elisa Medde – for 13 years the mastermind behind Foam Magazine‘s rise to worldwide acclaim – has been instrumental to the existence of the AFMP program since its initial launch in 2023. We are ever so grateful and excited that she is staying on as core mentor for this third edition! As a most influential shaper of photographic culture today, Elisa will lend her deep knowledge of contemporary practice to guiding the participants’ projects from early development stages and into successful completion, challenging them each step of the way to emerge their most innovative and ambitious voice possible.

Joining her in doing so, we are thrilled to also welcome back acclaimed documentary photographer and Guggenheim fellow (2020) Stacy Kranitz as core mentor for this third edition! Stacy already contributed her invaluable experience and limitless talent to the second AFMP edition, which helped drive all the projects created by its 11 participants into strong personal ones also able to address global aspects of society.

Stacy’s groundbreaking work “As It Was Give(n) To Me” (published as a monograph in 2022 with Twin Palms) placed her at the forefront of a new generation of artists rethinking the documentary tradition, and embracing the inherent limitations and flaws of photographic representation as a crucial component of contemporary storytelling. As such, Stacy will be a most ideal mentor to develop long-form projects that can also be reflective of these critical cracks in the photographer’s traditional power position.

Longtime FotoFilmic collaborator and award-winning book artist Christian Patterson will also join the core AFMP III mentoring team during the second half of the program (November 2025 – April 2026) to spearhead the concept and design of the final exhibitions and its accompanying catalog publication. Bridging the gap between the last development stage of the participants’ projects, their final edited form, and an ambitious multi-format presentation is a task we know Christian will acquit himself with amazingly well thanks to his unique, meticulous and perceptive creative flair. His latest book “Gong Co.“, a decade in the making masterpiece, was officially released just this past November in Paris following the AFMP II retreat.

MENTOR BIOGRAPHIES