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Original name: Riefenstahl
English name: Riefenstahl
Year: 2024
Run time: 115 minutes
Language: German, English
Type (Colour/Black & White): Colour, Black & White
Country: Germany
Director: Andres Veiel
Producer: Sandra Maischberger
Cast: Andrew Bird (narrator)
Screenplay: Andres Veiel
Cinematographer: Toby Cornish
Editor: Stephan Krumbiegel, Olaf Voigtländer, Alfredo Castro
Sound Designer: Matthias Lempert
Music Composer: Freya Arde
Production Company: Vincent Productions GmbH
World Sales: Beta Cinema
Andres Veiel works on film and theatre projects that are mostly located in the border area between reality and fiction. His work is characterized by intensive research, some of it lasting several years. He has received more than fifty awards, including the European Film Prize and several German Film Prizes. His theatre plays Der Kick (2006) and Das Himbeerreich (2013) and Let them eat money (2018) have been performed on more than 100 stages worldwide. Andres Veiel teaches at various film schools. At the DFFB (German Film and Television Academy) he offers a master class in documentary film, in which he accompanies students from the initial idea until the completion of their films.
Leni Riefenstahl, a controversial artist and Nazi propagandist, is known for films like Triumph of the Will and Olympia, which glorify physical perfection and dominance while expressing disdain for weakness. Her aesthetics remain influential today, but what about their underlying messages? This film explores her rise as the Reich's premier filmmaker, her denial of close ties to Hitler and Goebbels, and her postwar efforts to control her legacy. Personal documents reveal her mourning of "murdered ideals" and echoes of postwar German longing for order. Could there come a time when her work would also experience a renaissance where we question - what if it was right?
