‘A fierce need to be independent’: Gerda Taro biopic pulls photographer out of lover Robert Capa’s shadow

Film premieres at Venice as researchers question who took famous Spanish civil war shot of ‘falling soldier’, credited to the pair’s Robert Capa alias

She was one of the most fearless female photojournalists of the 20th century, and the first known to have been killed while covering a war. But in life and in death, the work of Gerda Taro has often been overshadowed by the collaborator and lover whose alias she invented and sometimes shared: Robert Capa.

That may be about to change with a new biopic that seeks to pull the pioneering photographer from out of Capa’s shadow, which is premiering at the Venice film festival just as researchers claim to have proof that his most famous and controversial picture was actually taken by her.