Born in Bern in 1957, Michael von Graffenried, the founder and manager of the Swiss Press Award, began his career as an international photojournalist in 1978, and today concentrates on long-term projects in multiple media including billboards and film. His documentary film War without Images, produced with Mohammed Soudani, first screened at the Locarno Film Festival in 2002. Von Graffenried has exhibited widely and his photographs are held in many permanent collections. His awards include a World Press Photo Award (1989), Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in the French Legion d’Honneur (2006) and the Dr. Erich Salomon Prize from the German Society of Photography (2010)—the third Swiss to obtain the award after René Burri and Robert Frank. Graffenried’s books with Steidl are Bierfest (2014) and Our Town (2021).