The Girl With The Leica

In 1937, Gerda Taro became the first photojournalist to die on a battlefield, killed as she attempted to cover the Spanish Civil War. She was just 26. This, in many ways, however, is not that story, since filmmaker Alina Marazzi (co-writing with Valia Santella and drawing loosely on Helena Janeczek's book of the same name, which fictionalised Taro's life) is more interested in painting a picture of Leipzig-born Jew Taro's (formerly Gerta Pohorylle) personal life and, in particular, her vast array of romantic dalliances than she is in showing her in a warzone. That Taro (Emilia Schüle) was a force of nature is never in doubt but Marazzi is so focused on the frame of her life that the picture of Taro itself feels lost in the shuffle. This is particularly ironic since much of Taro's work was itself lost for decades.

Shuffling, indeed, is the name of the game for the Italian filmmaker, who presents the story out of chronological order, zipping back and forth through time from Bastille Day 1937 and flitting from place to place, for reasons that seem to be driven by style rather than substance. The toing and froing of time and place only serves to make things hard to follow for the viewer, although it is likely to inspire an internet safari afterwards to find out more about this elusive but extremely talented photographer.

The focus of Marazzi's film is a key period in Taro's life, during which she and several of her friends, dismayed and, in some cases, fearful, of the rise of the Nazis in Germany, flee the country. Ruth (Luna Wedler), is Taro's best friend who later becomes a professional helpmate, while the puppy-eyed Willy (Thomas Schubert) and more serious wannabe doctor Georg (Lucas Englander) are on/off lovers in a life that Marazzi indicates was, in romantic terms, more dalliance than commitment.

Finding downbeat digs in Paris with Ruth, it is there that she meets fellow emigre Endre Friedmann, a photojournalist who becomes yet another romantic entanglement but also, crucially, teaches her how to use a camera. He became known to the world as "American" Robert Capa, and though the pair worked in tandem, it was he whose name made the history books.

There's the kernel of an interesting idea at the heart of this film, surrounding photographs and their importance as tools of memory and crucial work of documenting something to prove it happened to others. The strongest element, arguably, is Taro's photos themselves, swirled about at regular intervals with archive footage showing Paris and Germany from the period, which makes you wonder how fascinating a straightforward documentary about Taro might have been. Marazzi's film also fizzes with energy, often showing Taro in a swirl of dance, it's only a shame that she also dances round her subject.

The film opened the Orizzonti section of Venice Film Festival.

Reviewed on: 05 Sep 2026