Riefenstahl

Leni Riefenstahl, the director of Triumph of the Will and Olympia, is considered one of the most controversial photography and film figures of the twentieth century. How could Riefenstahl rise to become the Reich’s leading filmmaker while persistently denying any close ties to Hitler and Goebbels?

The film explores this question using only documents from Riefenstahl’s estate, including private films, photos, letters, and recordings. Riefenstahl remained an important, uncomfortable and often angry figure in the German landscape until her death at 101 years, after a tentative reinvention of her artistic persona during months-long projects in Sudan.

"Riefenstahl does not come to praise or reclaim the late director, but nor does it mean to bury her. It acknowledges her as a trailblazer... But the film also demonstrates the ways in which her work is inextricably linked to nazism." Xan Brooks, The Guardian

Germany, 2024

German Language with English Subtitles