Trained to See – Three Women and the War

During the Second World War, women were for the first time allowed to work as war correspondents. Based on reports, letters and diary excerpts, filmmaker Luzia Schmid sketches a personal portrait of three fearless women and their unique attempts to report on the war.

Margaret Bourke-White, Martha Gellhorn and Lee Miller already had impressive track records, and to them it seemed only natural that they should head for the battlefield. But what initially seemed fun and exciting became increasingly frustrating as the war continued. Petulant husbands (among them Ernest Hemingway) stood in their way, the scale of the atrocities increased, and they encountered opposition on a professional level as well: Bourke-White lost her press card and Miller was arrested, because as a woman she was not allowed to be at the front.

Schmid draws on both personal correspondence and archive footage (some previously unseen) to create an inspiring picture of three trailblazers who entered uncharted territory for women and stood in the midst of world history in their combat boots.