The LUMIX Festival presents and reflects the young, socially committed visual journalism of the 21st century and actively examines political, cultural, social, ecological and technological processes. With the means of expression inherent to journalistic, transmedial narrative formats, visual storytellers focus on current perspectives of the documentary, understanding these as media of active participation in global debates. 

Since 2008, the LUMIX Festival for Young Visual Journalism, organised by the students of the ‘Photojournalism and Documentary Photography’ programme at the Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts with the support of Panasonic and the Freelens photographers’ association, has taken place.

Every two years over the five days of the festival 40,000 visitors find a broad range of photo and multimedia exhibitions in seven exhibition locations around Expo Plaza in Hanover. Along with a daily programme of interviews, discussion events, networking and presentations by renowned visual journalists, the festival also offers daily tours for interested groups, a competition for schoolchildren, portfolio reviews for young photographers and a technical fair in the Design Centre. The heart of the festival are the competitions for the FREELENS Award, which is endowed with 10,000 euros, and the LUMIX Digital Storytelling Award, which is endowed with 5,000 euros. In the past, more than 1,200 photographers from 90 different countries have participated in these competitions.