Veruschka:
Poetry of a Woman
Saturday 24 May, 19:00
The Horse Hospital
Italy, 1971
Dir. Franco Rubartelli
92min
Italian with English subtitles
With Veruschka von Lehndorff and Luigi Pistilli
With a soundtrack composed by Ennio Morricone and featuring vocals by Edda Dell'Orso, this rarely-screened film is a lush existentialist portrayal of personhood and contemplation of beauty as raw material. Written and starring Veruschka von Lehndorff – the fashion model cum performance artist incarnate – and directed by the photographer Franco Rubartelli, the screen is enveloped by the glittering miasma that is typical of the early 1970s. The model is a woman with a tortured soul. In the snowy landscape dreaming of sun and dust she is told: 'you’ll be like a tree taken away from the forest, your roots will be crying.' From its opening sequence we immediately see her iconography rooted into the earth as she appears camouflaged as a boulder in a pile of rocks. Between philosophical musings and panoramas of rural Italy, we watch her paint her face like a flower in a rainbow of hues and see her cavorting on a tree dappled in cheetah spots.
Throughout her extensive career, Veruschka’s image has been so iconic that she has always seemed to want to escape it. Her most celebrated images present her veiled in body paint, artful makeup and drag. Most were made in collaboration with Rubartelli who often captured her as a lynx or exotic cat leaning into her enduring animalistic magnificence. Speaking about a picture they had made together in the 1970s, Diana Vreeland said: ‘A world without leopards, well, who would want to live in it?’
The film is screened from a VHS, with the permission of Franco Rubartelli.
Introduction by festival co-curator Dal Chodha.
Franco Rubartelli is a renowned self-taught photographer, filmmaker and publicist whose work has left a significant mark on the worlds of fashion and visual arts. Rubartelli’s early breakthrough came in the 1960s, when he began photographing his first wife, Françoise Schluter, a prominent fashion model in Rome. Eschewing elaborate makeup and styling, Rubartelli captured Schluter in natural, spontaneous poses. He sent these photos to American Vogue, then under the direction of Diana Vreeland, and her enthusiastic response brought him and Schluter to New York where they began working for Vogue.
Rubartelli's career flourished as he contributed to leading magazines also including French, Italian, Australian and British Vogue, Elle, Time Life, Playboy, Marie Claire, Queen, Stern, and Jardins de Mode among others. A pivotal moment in his life was his chance encounter with the German model Veruschka (Vera von Lehndorff) in Rome. Their nine-year romantic and creative partnership produced some of the era’s most iconic images, including pioneering body painting photographs that appeared in Vogue starting in 1968, as well as the film Veruschka: The Poetry of a Woman. Their fantastical, colourful, and sometimes decadently surreal collaborations forged a new visual language in fashion.
In 1968, Rubartelli relocated to Venezuela, where he directed over a thousand commercials and two films: Simplicio and Ya Koo (the latter filmed in the Amazon jungle). His influence extends beyond photography to advertising and cinema. His photographs have been exhibited internationally and remain highly sought after by collectors. His legacy lies not only in his images but also in the creative freedom and innovation he brought to photography, inspiring his contemporaries and successors alike.