FORMAT International Photography Festival returns to Derby from 13 – 30 March 2025 to showcase the very best photography and lens-based media being produced today, alongside thought-provoking archive material.  

For the 2025 edition the festival theme is ‘Conflicted’. Set more as a guide rather than a rule, the theme was intended to prompt responses from artists across the globe, via the FORMAT25 Open Call, to propose work that reflects multiple facets, factions, hopes and fears of our world, today. ‘Conflicted’ is a prescient theme; the world we live in today is as ever convulsing with change. Throughout history societies, civilizations and cultures have been subject to division and catastrophic change amidst periods of stability and peace. Recent times have borne witness to what would seem to be one monumental change and challenge after the other – a seemingly endless slew of emergencies including the Covid pandemic, a cost-of-living crisis, catastrophic wars, coupled with a sense – across the globe – that political populism is becoming the norm. Consensus, agreement and simple kindness can at times seem to be at a premium. The world is a conflicted place. Yet, photography is a medium that can have an uncanny ability to speak truth to power, to succinctly and powerfully reflect the world about us, and to make us stop, think and reset. Who better to help us through this time, to guide us and to help us understand, than the artist, the photographer; the filmmaker? 

FORMAT International Photography Festival is organised by and is a partnership between QUAD and the University of Derby. QUAD is funded and supported by Arts Council England and Derby City Council, with additional support from a range of national and international partners.