Adolf Hitler – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

RIEFENSTAHL – Review by Diane Carson

September 30, 2025October 3, 2025 Diane Carson 1934 Nuremberg Rally, Adolf Hitler, Andres Veiel, documentary, Leni Riefenstahl, nazi propaganda, Nazi trials, Olympia, Riefenstahl, Third Reich, Triumph of the Will, war crimes

Helene Bertha Amalie (Leni) Riefenstahl (1902-2003) was a great film director and photographer, tragically so because she devoted her talent to promoting and glorifying Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich’s beliefs and agenda. Equally appalling and indefensible, as masterfully presented in director Andres Veiel’s documentary Riefenstahl, for her entire life after World War II, she vociferously proclaimed her complete ignorance of the Holocaust and denied any support of Nazi ideology. Told entirely through archival film clips, photographs, letters, television interviews, and her own memoir, Riefenstahl reveals in substantive, meticulous detail Riefenstahl’s implausible, reprehensible lies regarding her promotion of abhorrent Nazi propaganda.

Reviews

RIEFENSTAHL – Review by April Neale

August 27, 2025August 27, 2025 April Neale Adolf Hitler, biodoc, documentary, Leni Riefenstahl, Riefenstahl, Third Reich

Andres Veiel’s documentary is a cultural autopsy. Through newly uncovered archival material, we’re face-to-face with Leni Riefenstahl’s legacy: her breathtaking visual innovations, her unapologetic alignment with fascist ideals, and her unusual love life and lifelong refusal to accept responsibility for the regime she helped glorify. This is not just a story of what she filmed, but of what she chose to omit, and what that omission cost the world. In an age where algorithms and image manipulation increasingly obscure truth, Riefenstahl serves as a stark reminder that propaganda doesn’t always arrive wearing a uniform; sometimes, it comes wrapped in beauty, brilliance, and the language of progress.