About us
Patricio Estay is a French-Chilean filmmaker, producer, and photographer. After completing a degree in ethnomusicology, he embarked on a career in photojournalism. At the age of 20, he moved to Brazil, where his career as a visual artist was enriched by the vibrant environment. Workshops with great masters of music such as Ravi Shankar, Mikis Theodorakis, and Elvin Jones left an indelible impression on his young life as a visual artist. The photographic image has always been Estay’s natural medium as a storyteller.
The insight of his reportage, the power of his chosen subject and his alert eye are hallmarks of the personal and profound vision that fuels his career. He moved to France in 1981, where he also began working as a filmmaker, starting a new life and a prolific career in photography, cinema, and publication. His photographs have been published by the most renowned magazines in the world. In 1982, he held his first exhibition (Collective) in France, “L’Amérique Latine à Paris” at the Grand Palais in Paris. In the same year, he began studying ethnographic and documentary cinema at Université Paris 4 – Sorbonne, under the guidance of Jean Rouch.
In 1985, supported by a grant from the French Ministry of Culture, he wrote the screenplay for the documentary “Les Corralejas”, collaborating with Films D’Ici and INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel). In 1989, along with his close friend, Cuban photographer Alberto Korda, Estay was one of the inaugural exhibitors at the first International Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan, France, with their joint show “Trente Ans de Révolution Cubaine”.
In 1988, Estay began a project that would span the next twenty-one years, documenting the equestrian cultures of eleven different countries. In 2001, the fruits of this labor, the book “Peuples Cavaliers”, was published by Le Chêne, and in 2012, a second book, “Cavaliers du Monde”, was published by Editions De La Martinière. Part of this work was exhibited at the 1993 Visa International Festival of Photojournalism, and in 2008 in Piazza del Campo in Siena, home to the famous Palio Horse Race. In 1997, he won the European Fuji Press Award in the magazine category for his work “Lord of the Bush”, produced in Australia.
In 1999, inspired by his meeting with Henri Cartier-Bresson, Estay began the project “Tibet: Land of Exile”. Over a period of eleven years, with unparalleled access, Estay photographed the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan diaspora in Dharamsala, India, and Tibet, in what he describes as one of the most important projects of his career.
The result of this work became a book, published in 2007 by Skira in Italy and in 2008 by Thames & Hudson in the United States, with a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman. The exhibition of these photographs has been shown in Florence, Milan, Rome, and Massa e Carrara in Italy. In 2003, Estay founded a photo agency, Nazca Pictures Communication, and began dividing his time between Paris and Florence. In 2008, he founded NazcaVision, an HD film production company created to explore new creative paths in documentary filmmaking.
In 2010, he began working on the ambitious multimedia project “SOS Earth and Blue Planet”, designed to highlight environmental, climate change, and biodiversity issues around the globe. Inspired by this project, in 2013 he wrote “Green Mission”, a documentary series that documents the lives of “Last Peoples” facing the threat of extinction. Now, as he nears the end of his professional career, Estay seeks to modestly honor the 800th anniversary of Saint Francis’s death through “The Divine Nature”. This project includes the publication of a book, the production of a film, and a traveling photographic exhibition. It is a two-year production to be realized in the Casentino National Park.
“Today more than ever, Estay believes in the extraordinary expressions of freedom, passion, and life that the power of instinct and creativity can bring.”