The AFD Special Price / Réponses Photo Best Photo Report was awarded to Romain Laurendeau with his series “Sidi Moussa“. The Prize is of € 5,000 and the winner will be published in Réponses Photo magazine.
Sidi Moussa, “Lord Moses” in Arabic, is a village located 30 km from Algiers. It was originally an agricultural area, considered a “small paradise”, but went on to become the flagship of Algerian socialism thanks to its industrialization in the 1970s. However, in the 1980s, a serious crisis hit Algeria, which had only just opened up to a multi-party system. Factories closed and many unemployed people, abandoned by the State, joined the Islamists. Sidi Moussa was then immersed in a bloodbath, which was to last for 8 years. Today, peace has returned, but the scars are still in people’s minds and on the walls.
In Algeria, young people account for two-thirds of the population. They find themselves with no job, they live hand to mouth, prisoners of a history they did not experience and which governs their lives. This reportage is the history of a village that has become a symbol, and not by choice, of an Algeria which is suffering and of young people who dream only of a better future.
Romain Laurendeau, 39, is a former photography student from ETPA Photography School in Toulouse and a member of the Hans Lucas studio. His reportages have been nominated in a number of competitions and festivals, such as the Visa pour l’Image photojournalism festival and the Bayeux-Calvados Award of War Correspondents. He was a winner of the 2013 Photo Press ZOOM and Public ZOOM awards of the Salon de la Photo.
