Donyale Luna, the first black supermodel that history erased and who died at only 33 years old

We have probably come across his photographs somewhere. An impossibly tall woman, with a look that goes beyond the lens. This is Donyale Luna, the first black supermodel who worked with Warhol, Avedon and Fellini. How is it possible that her name doesn't ring a bell? This is precisely the question posed by the documentary

Donyale Luna: Supermodel,

presented within the eighth edition of the Moritz Feed Dog Festival in Barcelona and winner of the same.

The film's producer, Melissa Kramer, was intrigued by an image of the mannequin she saw at an exhibition. “I Googled her name and went into a loop,” she recalls. “I am a creative consultant in fashion publications and I couldn't believe that I didn't know her. I asked other colleagues with a lot of experience, and they had not heard of it either. So I started researching until I became totally obsessed.” The information she found about her was confusing, but she learned that the model's husband lived in New York and she managed to meet him for coffee. After spending an afternoon talking she knew that to delve deeper into her life she had to film a documentary. “I found myself with an enigma. Her modeling work is just one part of her incredible story,” explains Ella Kramer.

Contact sheet with portraits of Luigi Cazzaniga.Luigi Cazzaniga / HBO / MORITZ FEED DOG FESTIVAL

The documentary's director, Nailah Jefferson, encountered other challenges. “The media that spoke about her did so in a sensational and lax manner, and we had to resort to her personal diaries to dismantle falsehoods about her. It was also difficult to find people who knew her personally. Many of them are no longer alive, and others do not want to be seen because their physique is different from what they had when they worked in fashion. That must be respected,” she reasons. After years of work, the team found family, friends, roommates, and fellow models like Beverly Johnson and Pat Cleveland, who knew and admired Luna.

Donyale Luna in 1968 with Brian Jones, along with Yoko Ono and Julian and John Lennon on the set of The Rolling Stones film 'Rock'n'Roll Circus', where they participated.Cummings Archives / Redferns / GETTY IMAGES

Born in Detroit in 1945 to a working-class family, Peggy Ann Freeman was discovered as a teenager on the street by British photographer David McCabe. When the young woman landed in the Big Apple two years later, in just a few months she had an illustrated cover of

Harper's Bazaar,

she frequented Warhol's Factory and had signed an exclusive contract with Richard Avedon, the most sought-after fashion photographer of the moment. Peggy had become Donyale Luna. But at the same time as opportunities arrived, obstacles appeared. At the height of African-American civil rights activism,

Harper's Bazaar

advertisers protested Donyale Luna's images in the magazine and threatened to pull advertising. Escaping this discrimination, she moved to Europe, where she reinvented herself into a character of ambiguous origin with the imaginary name of Peggy Anna Donyale Zazia Luna Freeman. “It was a mirage, a kind of fantasy,” Pat Cleveland has declared, “when entering restaurants people stopped eating to stand up and applaud.”

Donyale Luna in a Rudi Gernreich dress painted by Salvador Dalí, in a 1966 portrait by William Claxton.William Claxton / HBO / MORITZ FEED DOG FESTIVAL

In London in the mid-sixties, she starred on a British

Vogue

cover photographed by David Bailey—the first of that magazine to feature a black model—and collaborated with the Rolling Stones. In Paris she acted in the film

Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?,

by William Klein, she met Dalí and worked with Paco Rabanne. At that time she was going to participate in the most expensive fashion editorial to date,

The Great Fur Caravan,

in

Vogue,

but at the last minute Diana Vreeland, then director of the publication, prevented Luna from being hired. When Avedon protested the decision, Vreeland cruelly compared Donyale Luna to King Kong. “Veruschka, who was finally chosen, was a very good professional, but with Luna the result would have had more impact,” reflects Kramer. “Avedon was a defender of civil rights and in her file you can see everything he fought for her and how much it hurt him to be rejected,” he adds.

As Enotea in 'El Satiricón' (1969) by Federico Fellini.CORDON PRESS

“Donyale Luna suffered other similar situations that we couldn't mention in the footage because we couldn't find someone who could corroborate them in front of the camera,” reveals Jefferson. “The editor of French

Vogue

wanted to give him the cover and they vetoed it from above. After all, it was an American medium whose influence reached Europe. It was about money and they didn't have the courage to dispute that,” says the director. These difficulties and a devastating family tragedy caused Luna to retreat further and further into a fantasy world. She moved to Italy, where she created artistic pieces, performed in avant-garde theater and worked with Fellini. Also there she met her husband, Luigi Cazzaniga, with whom she had a daughter, Dream. Sadly, 18 months after becoming her mother, in 1979, Luna died from an overdose. She was 33 years old.

With his daughter, Dream Cazzaniga, in 1977.LUIGI CAZZANIGA / HBO / MORITZ FEED DOG FESTIVAL

For Dream Cazzaniga, today a sustainability consultant who lives with her two daughters in France, any reluctance to talk about the loss of her mother disappeared when she met the documentary team: “They approached the project with care and respect. In fact, during the process I felt very close to her the vibration of my mother, her tremendous determination pushing me to tell who she really was,” she says excitedly. “Her life also had light. I am proud of the fact that she did not let others define her, that she did not accept the roles that they wanted to impose on her.”

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With fewer exceptions like that of stylist Law Roach who has explicitly referenced Donyale Luna in some of his collaborations with Zendaya, fashion history has sidelined this pioneer. “Black women's achievements can be lost in this way because they are not considered important,” Kramer reasons. “She was ahead of her time and misunderstood professionally and personally. At that time they didn't know what to do with someone like that,” concludes the producer. For Jefferson, it is important that Luna be known so that situations similar to those she experienced are not repeated. “The injustice is that if more girls had known about her, and had seen themselves represented, we would have a larger group of black models,” reasons the director. “What I learned from this job is that Luna chose not to shrink or camouflage herself. I hope we can all be as brave as her.”