(Andres Veiel, 2025, Germany, 120 minutes)

A reasonable reaction to learning about the existence of Andres Veiel’s new documentary Riefenstahl, about Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl, would be, “Do we need another documentary about her, after the three-hour 1993 masterwork The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl?” And a reasonable response to that question after having seen Veiel’s Riefenstahl is, “Actually, it turns out that we do!” For one, Veiel gets access to unreleased footage from Wonderful, Horrible Life, so it actually deepens our understanding of that film. Further, Veiel had access to Riefenstahl’s 700-box personal archive, the contents of which as you can imagine can be quite telling. Well researched, edited, and argued, Riefenstahl doesn’t so much look at the character afresh as it does deepen our understanding of her own and the culture’s reckoning with the work that she produced.

In German with English subtitles.