The documentary Riefenstahl (2024), directed by Andres Veiel, examines the life of Leni Riefenstahl through a critical lens. She is a filmmaker whose name has remained suspended in the history of cinema between artistic admiration and moral condemnation.
The film traces her career from celebrated works such as Triumph of the Will and Olympia to the final years of her life, and for the first time makes use of her personal archive, including home movies, letters, notes, and private conversations.
The central question it raises is whether Riefenstahl was merely an apolitical artist or whether she knowingly placed her talents in the service of fascist ideology. The documentary even suggests that she may have witnessed the massacre of Jews in Poland.
The film challenges the image Riefenstahl constructed of herself after the war—namely, “I was only an artist”—and seeks to demonstrate how deeply the aesthetics of her work were intertwined with Nazi ideals. It ultimately reminds us that images, power, and beauty can function both as sources of inspiration and as instruments of deception and domination.
In the end, the fundamental question remains unresolved:
Is cinema merely an art form, or can it also serve power and politics?
