Andres Veiel’s documentary Riefenstahl – unpicking the deceits of German filmmaker and Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl – has scored a slew of deals following its world premiere at Venice and North American launch at Telluride.
Munich-based World Sales company Beta Cinema announced deals to 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).
As previously announced Majestic is releasing the film in Germany while the Italian release is being handled by co-producer Rai Cinema. Additional territories are currently in negotiation.
Riefenstahl is one of the most controversial filmmakers of the 20th century as an artist and a Nazi propagandist, thanks to her 1930s films Triumph of the Will and Olympia – capturing the 1934 Nazi Party convention in Nuremberg and the 1936 Berlin Olympics in Berlin.
She always denied close ties with Adolf Hitler and other prominent figures in his Nazi regime, or any intention of furthering its aims through her work, painting herself as a non-political director, or observer.
Veiel’s documentary unpicks this claim, piecing together documents from her estate, including private films, photos, recordings and letters, the work uncovers fragments of her biography and places them in an extended historical context.
MyRumors exclusively unveiled the trailer ahead of its Venice screening. Watch it here.
Produced by German political journalist Sandra Maischberger, Riefenstahl is the first documentary with full access to the filmmaker’s estate.
“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,” said Beta Cinema’s CEO Dirk Schuerhoff.
Maischberger suggested the film’s screening in Venice was fitting given that the director’s Triumph of the Will and Olympia had world premiered in the festival in 1930s, when Italy was in the grip of fascism, winning the Mussolini Cup.
“When I realized the amount of material about her life Riefenstahl had left behind, much of it not known to the public… Presenting our film in Venice, where also Riefenstahl’s films had premiered, feels like a much-needed counterpoint to her lies and subterfuge,” she said.
Veiel added: “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.”
The film is produced by Vincent Productions GmbH in coproduction with WDR, NDR, BR, SWR and RBB in collaboration with Rai Cinema.