Gerda Taro was only 26 when she became the first female photojournalist to be killed on the battlefield. It would be decades before her true contribution to the artform was acknowledged. Alina Marazzi’s “The Girl With the Leica,” which opens Venice’s Horizons section, seeks to redress this oversight, and pays tribute to Taro’s vivacious personality.
Marazzi was already acquainted with Taro’s work when Helena Janeczek’s novel about the photographer came out in 2018. Soon after, the two of them met to discuss how the story could be adapted for the cinema. The screenplay was written by Marazzi with Valia Santella, with the part of Taro taken by Emilia Schüle, best known for the lead role in “Marie-Antoinette.”
The greatest change that Marazzi made was to tell the story from the point of view of Taro herself, whereas the book had told her story through the recollections of three of her friends, as they meet in the 1960s, looking back at her life.
“The Girl With the Leica”
Courtesy of Vivo Film, Komplizen Film, ZDF/Arte, Eolo Film Productions
