Movie About Gerda Taro, The Photojournalist Behind Robert Capa, Gets World Premiere

Photo by Manuel Alberto Claro, via Vivo Film, Komplizen Film, ZDF/ARTE, Eolo Film Productions

A feature film about Gerda Taro, the first female photojournalist to be killed while covering war, was given its world premiere at Venice Film Festival this week.

Titled The Girl With The Leica, it’s based on Helena Janeczek’s 2018 novel of the same name that explores the life of Taro, a German photojournalist who invented Robert Capa.

Most people think of Capa as the famous Hungarian-American photographer considered to be one of the greatest war photographers of all time. But Capa was initially a fictional photographer dreamt up by Taro and Endre Friedmann, who would later become known as Robert Capa.

The pair met in Paris in 1935. Both were Jewish immigrants fleeing the Nazis; they fell in love, began living together, and Friedmann taught Taro photography.

As Manuel Sechi wrote in PetaPixel a couple of years ago: “In order to overcome the increasing political intolerance prevailing in Europe and get access to the lucrative American market, they decided to get rid of their Jewish surnames and started to sell their pictures using the fictional name ‘Robert Capa’.”

Taro actually took some early photos credited to Robert Capa. Their ruse was eventually discovered, but the pair kept working together and would sell images under the brand “Capa-Taro.”

Silver Screen

Taro’s fascinating life will now feature on the big screen under the stewardship of Italian director Alina Marazzi. German actress Emilia Schüle will play Taro; see a clip from the film below.

Variety reports that the film centers around Bastille Day (July 14), 1937, and follows Taro as she meets her friends and Capa. The movie incorporates flashbacks to tell Taro’s backstory: her childhood in Leipzig, her left-wing activism, her subsequent arrest, and then ultimately fleeing her native country because of Hitler’s rise to power.

It’s not clear whether the film follows Gerta to Spain, where she covered the Spanish Civil War until her death during the Battle of Brunete. But the Variety report notes that the film does provide insight into her motivation to document the conflict.

“She was a young, lively, pretty, seductive woman, so she’s not giving up her personal life in order to become a strong, politically committed photographer,” Marazzi says. “It’s the combination of these two aspects that I thought was important to tell.”

On Monday, PetaPixel reported on another upcoming movie that is based around a war photographer: Zack Snyder’s The Last Photograph.