The organizers of FotoDC, the annual photo festival in Washington, D.C. which opens November 6, have partnered with several venues, publishers and organizations to create ten days of exhibitions, projections, lectures and film screenings. The festival’s anchor exhibition, “Aperture: Photographs,” features prints by Diane Arbus, Bruce Davidson, Todd Hido, Rinko Kawauchi, Richard Misrach, Hank Willis Thomas and dozens of other photographers who have been published by Aperture Foundation or have contributed prints to its fundraisers over the course of its 50-year history. During the festival, National Geographic Museum will open the exhibition “Photo Ark,” photographer Joel Sartore’s portraits of roughly 5,000 endangered species. The Museum will also host talks by Sartore and photojournalist Lynsey Addario, author of the memoir It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War.

As part of the festival’s FotoFilm Series, the documentary Kandahar Journals, co-directed by photojournalist Louie Palu and Devin Gallagher, will be shown at the National Gallery of Art. Another film, Frame by Frame, will be screened at the Freer and Sackler Galleries; it follows four Afghan photojournalists who had continued to work under Taliban rule, when photography was illegal, and are now navigating a country in upheaval.

On four successive nights, the exterior of the U.S. Holocaust Museum will be turned into a projection screen showing images that document the persecution of religious minorities in Iraq. On Monday, November 9, the screening will be preceded by a panel discussion with experts on the politics of the region.

Other highlights of FotoDC include talks by Dan Winters and other photographers, and an Irving Penn show at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. A full schedule of events and tickets for the opening party are available on the FotoDC website. — Holly Stuart Hughes