War photography and reportage

Edito

There was a time when photography played a central role in how conflicts were reported. In the pages of Vu, Life, Paris Match and Stern, photographs did more than illustrate articles. They gave events a human face, sometimes becoming inseparable from how those events would be remembered. The advent of television, followed by the rise of 24-hour news, profoundly transformed the way images circulated. Yet while images of war have never been so abundant, their proliferation does not necessarily help us better understand what they depict.

Photographing war also means confronting what lies beyond the image. How can violence be documented without turning it into a spectacle? What should be shown, and what should remain outside the frame? These questions run throughout the history of photojournalism, where the need to document events meets personal commitment and responsibility towards those being photographed.

From Robert Capa and Gerda Taro during the Spanish Civil War to Catherine Leroy in Vietnam, and the contemporary conflicts covered by Massimo Berruti and Stefano De Luigi, these five documentaries reveal distinct careers and perspectives. Each offers a different way of questioning the photographer’s role in documenting history and the part images play in shaping our understanding of it.

5 films
4 h 29 min
Edito, 2 min read

86’

Robert Capa, Gerda Taro & David Seymour｜The Mexican Suitcase

Mexico, Spain - 2011 es en

The recovered negatives

In 1939, Robert Capa left behind in Paris his negatives from the Spanish Civil War. They resurfaced seventy years later in Mexico: 4,500 images by Capa, Gerda Taro and David Seymour, known as Chim.

The film tells the story of this rediscovery and of the birth, with them, of modern war photography, close to the action, interwoven with accounts of Spanish exiles who found refuge in Mexico.

57’

Searching for Gerda Taro

France - 2020 en en

The first

Gerda Taro was the first woman photojournalist to die on assignment, on the eve of her 27th birthday, during the Spanish Civil War. Long presented as Robert Capa’s companion, she was a war reporter in her own right.

The film pays tribute to her work and questions the oblivion to which history has often consigned women photographers.

70’

Catherine Leroy｜Cathy at War

France, United States - 2016 en en

Twenty in Vietnam

Barely twenty, Catherine Leroy was one of the first photographers to cover the Vietnam War, from 1966 to the end of 1968.

More than four hundred of her images unfold, accompanied by the letters she sent to her parents and the accounts of those who knew her.

29’

Massimo Berruti | Guerra infinita

Italy - 2014 it en

A war at a distance

In Pakistan, Massimo Berruti has spent years documenting the effects of the war on terror on people living in the border regions.

The film follows him in the field, meeting victims of drone strikes and relatives of the disappeared, between the dignity of the portrait and the urgency of protests.

25’

Stefano De Luigi | Syria Street

Italy, Syria, Lebanon - 2015 it en

A front line through the city

In Tripoli, in northern Lebanon, a single street divides two rival neighbourhoods, Bab al-Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen, against the backdrop of the war in Syria.

The film follows Stefano De Luigi among the residents and fighters of this urban border, and shows how violence leaves its mark on buildings, shops and lives.

What you’ll find

Portraits of photographers, names everyone knows and others you’ll discover here. Films about street photography, war, fashion or portraiture, about printing and historical processes. About the trades of photography too. And then suggestions for going further, with Focuses, articles, interviews, bibliographies.

A small independent team

Documentaries about photography were rarely shown on television, and hardly at all on streaming platforms. We created The Darkroom Rumour to give them a place of their own. We are a small team, and we choose every film ourselves, with no school to defend.

Inspire your photography

In these films, you see photographers at work, in the field as well as in the darkroom. If you take pictures, you’ll often come away with an idea to try. If you simply like looking at images, you may start to see them differently.

How it works

You can watch the films online, anywhere in the world, on a computer, tablet or phone, and on TV by mirroring your phone’s or computer’s screen. Every film is available in French and English, with no ads. New releases come out on Saturday or Sunday. The trial lasts 7 days, and if you stop before day 8, you pay nothing.

The Darkroom Rumour on a TV, a computer, a tablet and a phone

Linked Articles

Beyond the Negatives: The human stories of the Mexican Suitcase

by Trisha Ziff

Beyond the Negatives: The human stories of the Mexican Suitcase

linked to Robert Capa, Gerda Taro & David Seymour｜The Mexican Suitcase

In this interview, filmmaker and exhibition curator Trisha Ziff revisits the extraordinary story of The Mexican Suitcase, a set of long-lost negatives from the Spanish Civil War once attributed solely to Robert Capa. Their rediscovery made it possible to restore authorship to three photographers : R…

Further exploration

Selected bibliography

Robert Capa, Gerda Taro & David Seymour | The Mexican Suitcase

• Cynthia Young (ed.), The Mexican Suitcase. The Rediscovered Spanish Civil War Negatives of Capa, Chim & Taro, Steidl Verlag, 2010. Libraries

• Marina Budhos and Marc Aronson, Eyes of the World: Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and the Invention of Modern Photojournalism, Henry Holt & Co, 2017. Libraries

Searching for Gerda Taro

• Irme Schaber, Gerda Taro: With Robert Capa as Photojournalist in the Spanish Civil War, Edition Axel Menges, 2019. Libraries

• Jane Rogoyska, Gerda Taro : Inventing Robert Capa, Jonathan Cape, 2013. Libraries

• François Maspero, Out of the Shadows: A Life of Gerda Taro, Souvenir Press, 2008. Publisher · Libraries

Catherine Leroy | Cathy at War

• Catherine Leroy, Robert Pledge and Dominique Deschavanne, One-Way Ticket to Vietnam 1966-1968, Atelier EXB, 2025. Publisher · Libraries

• Mary Cronk Farrell, Close-Up on War: The Story of Pioneering Photojournalist Catherine Leroy in Vietnam, Amulet Books, 2022.

• Elizabeth Becker, You Don't Belong Here, How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War, PublicAffairs/Hachette Books Group, 2022. Publisher · Libraries

• Catherine Leroy (ed.), Under Fire, Great Photographers and Writers in Vietnam, Random House, 2005.

• Catherine Leroy and Tony Clifton, God Cried, Quartet Books, 1983.

Massimo Berruti | Guerra infinita

• Shahzad Bashir and Robert D. Crews (eds.), Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands, Harvard University Press, 2012. Publisher · Libraries

• Medea Benjamin, Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, Verso, 2013. Publisher · Libraries

• Lisa Parks and Caren Kaplan (eds.), Life in the Age of Drone Warfare, Duke University Press, 2017. Publisher · Libraries

• Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Libraries

• Ariella Azoulay, The Civil Contract of Photography, Zone Books, 2008. Publisher · Libraries

Stefano De Luigi | Syria Street

• Stefano De Luigi, Blanco, Trolley Books, 2010. Publisher · Libraries

• Susie Linfield, The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence, University of Chicago Press, 2010. Libraries

• Geoffrey Batchen, Mick Gidley, Nancy K. Miller and Jay Prosser (eds.), Picturing Atrocity: Photography in Crisis, Reaktion Books, 2012. Publisher · Libraries

• Christiane J. Gruber and Sune Haugbolle (eds.), Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East: Rhetoric of the Image, Indiana University Press, 2013.