Gerda Taro, the first female photojournalist to die while covering a conflict, is the subject of "The Girl With the Leica," a new film by Alina Marazzi that opens the Horizons section at the Venice Film Festival. The drama aims to correct decades of historical neglect of Taro's work and legacy, much of which was overshadowed after her photographs were attributed to her partner and collaborator, who adopted the name Robert Capa. Told from Taro's own perspective, the film centres on 14 July 1937 as she prepares to return to report on the Spanish Civil War, using flashbacks to trace her earlier life and relationships.

The screenplay, written by Marazzi with Valia Santella and based on Helena Janeczek's 2018 novel, casts Emilia Schüle in the lead role. It charts Taro's journey from Gerta Pohorylle, a left-wing activist who fled Nazi Germany, to a pioneering photographer in 1930s Paris, where she joined forces with Endrè Friedmann to create the "Robert Capa" persona. The narrative also captures the wider émigré community around her, including photographers Fred Stein and David "Chim" Seymour, and draws on Irme Schaber's biography of Taro for historical detail. Taro was killed in Spain in 1937 aged 26; a cache of missing negatives from the war, rediscovered in 2007, later helped establish her true contribution to photojournalism.