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Revision as of 23:41, 25 December 2024 by Mtvdanilo (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Riefenstahl is a German documentary film by director Andres Veiel and producer Sandra Maischberger about the German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. The film premiered on August 29, 2024 at the Venice Film Festival and was released in German theaters on October 31, 2024.
Leni Riefenstahl was honored several times at the Venice Film Festival. In 1932, she was awarded the silver medal for The Blue Light; in 1934, the gold medal for Triumph of the Will; and, in 1938, the gold medal of the Coppa Mussolini for best foreign film for Olympia.
Film
Background
Sandra Maischberger interviewed filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl in 2002 to mark the centenary of her birth. The director of the interview was Hans-Jürgen Panitz, who won an Emmy in 1993 for his documentary The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl. Sandra's interview with Leni was broadcast simultaneously in Germany and France on Arte on August 15, 2002, under the title Sandra Maischberger meets Leni Riefenstahl. Maischberger later commented on the interview: “in the middle, I thought she was lying” and “I hadn't been able to get anything out of her. And I thought that couldn't have been it”. She then delved deeper into Riefenstahl's life and, as she told the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, the idea for a documentary was born.
In 2016, Riefenstahl's heirs handed over her estate to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which included 7,000 boxes of scripts, letters, notes, film excerpts, photographs, private super 8 recordings, cassette tapes with telephone recordings and various drafts for her memoirs, all disorganized. Maischberger offered the foundation a careful inventory of the estate, carried out by experts. In return, she received permission to use the material for the production of a documentary. In 2018, documentary filmmaker Andres Veiel joined the project with his team of editors, who had been involved in visualizing the material from the beginning, and cameraman Toby Cornish.
The director filled in the gaps in Riefenstahl's self-portrait with additional sources. For example, Riefenstahl's statement that she had never read Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was refuted by an interview published in the British newspaper Daily Express in April 1934, in which she said that she had bought a copy of the book in a bookshop on the way to filming The Blue Light. She told the British tabloid "take the book with you. At every break in filming. On the train. On the water. In the forest. After the first page, I'm already a convinced National Socialist". This interview is not included in the estate organized by his family, but was still available in the newspaper's archive in England.
Production
The film was produced by Sandra Maischberger and her production company Vincent Productions, in co-production with WDR, SWR, NDR, BR and rbb. The production was financed by Film- und Medienstiftung NRW [de], Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Filmförderungsanstalt [de], Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media [de] and Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg.
Stephan Krumbiegel [de] and Olaf Voigtländer, with whom Veiel had already worked on his documentary about Joseph Beuys, and Alfredo Castro took part in the editing of the film. The documentary was edited over a period of eighteen months. Toby Cornish was responsible for the camera work, just as he was for the documentary about Joseph Beuys.
The music for the film was written by Freya Arde, who managed to record the compositions with the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg.
In an interview, Veiel said that the documentary warns of the rise of the far-right in the contemporary world. Veiel pointed out that “in the last conversation Leni has on the phone in the movie, she says that it will take one or two generations for Germany to rediscover its role in terms of morality, virtue and order. That's not too far removed from Donald Trump and what he says about immigrants spoiling American blood. It was a darkly prophetic conversation".
Exhibition
The film was shown for the first time at the Venice Film Festival on August 29, 2024. It premiered in German cinemas on October 31, 2024.
In North America, the premiere took place at the Telluride Film Festival, in the town in the interior of Colorado, where Riefenstahl received the prize of honor at the first festival in 1974.
References
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- Rogers, Thomas (November 6, 2024). "Filmmaker's Private Archive Rekindles Debate Over Her Nazi Ties". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 11, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- Beier, Lars-Olav; Höbel, Wolfgang (August 30, 2024). "(S+) »Riefenstahl«-Dokumentarfilm von Andres Veiel: Fanatikerin in eigener Sache". Der Spiegel (in German). ISSN 2195-1349. Archived from the original on December 17, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- "Andres Veiel: Neue Perspektive auf Leni Riefenstahl". Inforadio (in German). October 24, 2024. Archived from the original on December 25, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- Vallejo, Aida (March 5, 2020). "Rethinking the canon: the role of film festivals in shaping film history". Studies in European Cinema. doi:10.1080/17411548.2020.1765631. ISSN 1741-1548.
- Brooks, Xan (August 29, 2024). "Riefenstahl review – deep-dive study takes down the Nazis' favourite director". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on December 13, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- Sandra Maischberger trifft Leni Riefenstahl, ARTE, retrieved December 25, 2024
- Hidalgo, João Eduardo (2024), "German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl and documentary as a narrative of a historical period: The mystification of nazism?", Open Science Research XIV, Editora Científica Digital, pp. 472–491, ISBN 978-65-5360-559-6, archived (PDF) from the original on December 25, 2024, retrieved December 25, 2024
- "Filmfestival: Maischberger hält Riefenstahl für überzeugte Faschistin". Der Tagesspiegel Online (in German). August 21, 2024. ISSN 1865-2263. Archived from the original on September 2, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- "SPK erhält den Nachlass von Leni Riefenstahl". Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (in German). February 12, 2018. Archived from the original on September 2, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- Sabbaga, Julia (August 29, 2024). "Cineasta favorita de Hitler ganha documentário exibido no Festival de Veneza; conheça". Estadão (in Brazilian Portuguese). Archived from the original on November 20, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- Hinrichsen, Jens (October 28, 2024). "Neuer Film über Leni Riefenstahl: Triumph ihres Willens". Monopol Magazine (in German). Archived from the original on December 13, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- ^ Rodek, Hanns-Georg (September 9, 2024). "Riefenstahl war Fake News: Andres Veiel über seine neue Doku - WELT". Die Welt (in German). Archived from the original on September 18, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- ^ "Riefenstahl". La Biennale di Venezia. 81st Venice International Film Festival. July 12, 2024. Archived from the original on December 13, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- "RIEFENSTAHL". KulturPort.De — Follow Arts ~ Online-Magazin (in German). August 9, 2024. Archived from the original on September 2, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- ^ Gheti, Bruno (September 1, 2024). "Leni Riefenstahl, a cineasta do nazismo, é retratada em documentário em Veneza". Folha de S.Paulo (in Brazilian Portuguese). Archived from the original on December 12, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- "Documentário sugere que Leni Riefenstahl, cineasta do nazismo, contribuiu para massacre de judeus poloneses". O Globo (in Brazilian Portuguese). August 28, 2024. Archived from the original on September 22, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
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- "Hitler's Favorite Filmmaker Honored At Colorado Festival (Published 1974)". The New York Times. September 15, 1974. Archived from the original on August 4, 2023. Retrieved December 25, 2024.
- "Michael's Telluride Film Blog : TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL HISTORY PART ONE: 1974-1995". Michael's Telluride Film Blog. Archived from the original on September 21, 2024. Retrieved December 25, 2024.