“She Withheld Empathy From Everyone But Herself”: Andres Veiel on Riefenstahl

Andres Veiel’s Riefenstahl is an arresting and deeply disturbing all-archival portrait of the titular Third Reich actor-director, responsible for some of the most innovative filmmaking of the 20th century as well as horrific war crimes (though Riefenstahl would go to her grave insisting she knew nothing of the mass murder taking place all around her, let alone the power of her propaganda). That said, Hitler’s cinematic mouthpiece would undoubtedly agree that great art requires great sacrifice — just not her own. The film is made up entirely of materials excavated from the 700 boxes Leni Riefenstahl bequeathed to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin, which arrived only after the death of her husband Horst Kettner (40 years her junior) in 2016. That’s when the doc’s producer Sandra Maischberger reached out and struck a deal with the Foundation: her Vincent Productions would undertake an initial examination of the estate for the right to use the contents for a film. What her team ultimately discovered was a never-before-seen goldmine of personal photos and intimate letters, startling recordings and even home movies. All of which, when pieced together by Veiel’s innovative artistic hand, prove what Maischberger (also a prominent journalist in Germany who conducted one of the last interviews Riefenstahl gave before her death) calls the “Riefenstahl principle.” While it’s pretty easy to tell if someone is lying to your face, it becomes nearly impossible when the person has told that lie to herself for so long she believes it to be the one and only truth. Filmmaker was fortunate enough to sit down in person with Veiel in the lobby of the Perry Lane Hotel at this year’s SCAD Savannah Film Festival (October 25 -November 1), where the German director participated in a post-screening Q&A and on the Docs to Watch Directors Roundtable.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.