Riefenstahl

Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) is by far the best-known director commissioned by the Nazis, certainly to contemporary audiences. She owes her continuing fame to the cinematic bravura of innovative, still-influential propaganda documentaries such as Triumph des Willens (about the Party Day in Nuremberg, 1934) and Olympia (about the Berlin Games, 1936). Perhaps equally infamous is the tenacity with which she claimed her historical innocence - and that of her aesthetic.

Yes, she was impressed by Hitler, but had merely seized an opportunity to use her talents. For his fascinating portrait, Andres Veiel, eminent chronicler of recent German history, had access for the first time to a wealth of private material from the estate of Riefenstahl and her 40 years younger partner Horst Kettner. It did not make him any milder. More than in previous films about her, it becomes clear how much Riefenstahl - wallowing in self-righteous victimhood - wanted to be seen in a favourable light. Above all, Veiel shows that Riefenstahl cannot have been ignorant of the cruel fate of collaborators and extras.