La ragazza con la Leica by Alina Marazzi was presented in the Orizzonti section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. Loosely based on Helena Janeczek's Strega Prize-winning novel, La ragazza con la Leica, it centres on a group of young Jews who flee Nazi Germany and take refuge in Paris in the 1930s.
The girl with the Leica is Gerda Taro (Emilia Schule), the first photojournalist to die on the battlefield, a woman who embodied a time when everything still seemed possible. Director Alina Marazzi brings to life on the big screen the moments that shaped her life: political commitment in Leipzig alongside her first love, the years of exile in Paris, love at first sight with Robert Capa (Aaron Altaras), her discovery of photography, and the ever-growing desire to use her Leica as an instrument of struggle and freedom.
In addition to Leipzig and Paris, the film was shot in Turin and Rome: filming took place over 6.5 weeks in Fall 2025 with a crew of approximately 70.
Not for the first time Turin appears, through the magic of film, as another city. In this case, 1930s Paris is evoked with the porticoes of piazza Carlo Alberto and the gardens of the Royal Palace, which serve as a park.
In Carignano, Villa Bona and the former Bona factory provided the setting for interior scenes: the former Bona factory, in particular, serves as the studio where the protagonists develop, view, and select photographs of the Spanish civil war. Numerous scenes set in Spain were filmed In Venaria Reale (parco La Mandria) and Borgo Carnalese, an architectural complex outside Villastellone, where Gerda and Capa document the war between Franco's regime and the Republicans.
Rome played itself, for scenes including the beach where Gerda meets Georg, her first love, who is studying medicine in Italy, to convince him to leave for Spain to fight for the Republican cause. Rome’s river bank, lungotevere, meanwhile, was transformed for a few days into the banks of the Seine.
La ragazza con la Leica by Alina Marazzi was presented in the Orizzonti section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival. Loosely based on Helena Janeczek's Strega Prize-winning novel, La ragazza con la Leica, it centres on a group of young Jews who flee Nazi Germany and take refuge in Paris in the 1930s.
The girl with the Leica is Gerda Taro (Emilia Schule), the first photojournalist to die on the battlefield, a woman who embodied a time when everything still seemed possible. Director Alina Marazzi brings to life on the big screen the moments that shaped her life: political commitment in Leipzig alongside her first love, the years of exile in Paris, love at first sight with Robert Capa (Aaron Altaras), her discovery of photography, and the ever-growing desire to use her Leica as an instrument of struggle and freedom.
In addition to Leipzig and Paris, the film was shot in Turin and Rome: filming took place over 6.5 weeks in Fall 2025 with a crew of approximately 70.
Not for the first time Turin appears, through the magic of film, as another city. In this case, 1930s Paris is evoked with the porticoes of piazza Carlo Alberto and the gardens of the Royal Palace, which serve as a park.
In Carignano, Villa Bona and the former Bona factory provided the setting for interior scenes: the former Bona factory, in particular, serves as the studio where the protagonists develop, view, and select photographs of the Spanish civil war. Numerous scenes set in Spain were filmed In Venaria Reale (parco La Mandria) and Borgo Carnalese, an architectural complex outside Villastellone, where Gerda and Capa document the war between Franco's regime and the Republicans.
Rome played itself, for scenes including the beach where Gerda meets Georg, her first love, who is studying medicine in Italy, to convince him to leave for Spain to fight for the Republican cause. Rome’s river bank, lungotevere, meanwhile, was transformed for a few days into the banks of the Seine.
Copyright: foto di Manuel Alberto Claro © 2026 Vivo film, Komplizen Film, ZDF_ARTE, Eolo film Productions
Emilia Schule - La ragazza con la Leica
Paris, July 14, 1937. Gerda Taro spends her last day before returning to the Spanish front with Robert Capa and the lifelong friends with whom she fled Nazi Germany. The moments from past and present that have shaped her life resurface: political commitment in Leipzig alongside her first love, the years of exile in Paris, falling in love at first sight with Capa, her discovery of photography, and the ever-growing desire to use her Leica as an instrument of struggle and freedom. This is a portrait of the first photojournalist to die on the battlefield, a woman who embodied a time when everything still seemed possible.
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