NEW RIEFENSTAHL DOCUMENTARY’S VENICE AND TELLURIDE PREMIERES BUOY STRONG INTERNATIONAL SALES
Riefenstahl, the eagerly awaited new film by renowned German director Andres Veiel (Black Box BRD, Beuys) on Leni Riefenstahl’s fascinating, long – she died in 2003 at the age of 101 – and deceitful life has been sold in ten key territories following its highly applauded world premiere at the 81. Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. Munich-based World Sales company Beta Cinema announced deals, apart from German distribution through Majestic and Italian distribution through co-producer Rai Cinema, for France (ARP), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Midas Filmes), Scandinavia (Edge Entertainment), Benelux (Imagine), Poland (Against Gravity), Hungary (Cirko Film), former Yugoslavia (MCF) and Japan (Longride Entertainment). Additional territories are currently in negotiation.
Veiel’s film, produced by renowned German political journalist Sandra Maischberger, is the first documentary with full access to Leni Riefenstahl’s estate. Riefenstahl became world-famous with her Nazi propaganda film TRIUMPH OF THE WILL but kept denying any closer ties to the regime. A captivating six-year investigation into her private papers, Maischberger and Veiel’s film decisively proves that this denialism was merely a convenient lie.
Leni Riefenstahl is considered one of the most controversial women of the 20th century as an artist and a Nazi propagandist. Her films TRIUMPH OF THE WILL and OLYMPIA stand for perfectly staged body worship and the celebration of the superior and victorious. At the same time, these images project contempt for the imperfect and weak. Riefenstahl’s aesthetics are more present than ever today - but is that also true for their implied message? The film examines this question using documents from Riefenstahl's estate, including private films, photos, recordings and letters. It uncovers fragments of her biography and places them in an extended historical context. How could Riefenstahl become the Reich's preeminent filmmaker and keep denying any closer ties to Hitler and Goebbels? During her long life after the fall of Nazism, she remained unapologetic, managing to control and shape her legacy. In personal documents, she mourns her "murdered ideals".
Dirk Schuerhoff, Beta Cinema’s CEO, comments: “We are delighted that so many of our distribution partners worldwide share our enthusiasm whose inquiry into questions of propaganda, right-wing extremism, and personal accountability couldn’t be timelier, not only in Germany.”
Producer Sandra Maischberger adds: “When I realized the amount of material about her life Riefenstahl had left behind, much of it not known to the public, I knew that we needed Andres’ gift for turning complex political issues into compelling documentaries to reassess the testimony of a notoriously unreliable narrator and bring the facts to a wide audience. Presenting our film in Venice, where also Riefenstahl’s films had premiered, feels like a much-needed counterpoint to her lies and subterfuge.”
Director Andres Veiel states: “I am grateful to Sandra and the entire team for taking on together the Sisyphean task of trying to make sense of Riefenstahl’s aesthetically influential but morally compromised life. We hope that our film can help audiences to think through the fascination and danger of populist and right-wing propaganda, wherever they happen to be.”
Riefenstahl by Andres Veiel / 2024 / Germany / 115 min / 1:1,85 (16:9) / Sound 5.1
Produced by Sandra Maischberger, Executive Producer Enzo Maaß