Films Directed by Leni Riefenstahl

OLYMPIA (1938)

"Had she directed no other film, Olympia would have secured her a place as one of the century's most important documentary filmmakers... Any serious study of the film medium is incomplete without knowledge of its construction." FW Ott, Great German Films

Prior to the ascension of the Third Reich, Berlin had been chosen as the site of the XI Olympiad. The games now would be hosted in prewar Nazi Germany. According to Riefenstahl, Hitler had expressed little desire to see the Games come to Berlin. When Riefenstahl was approached by the International Olympic Committee in 1935 to film the summer games in 1936, Hitler changed his opinion.

Knowing that her work would be again called into question and even blocked by Propaganda Minister Goebbels, Riefenstahl insisted on total artistic control. This was granted by the IOC and by Hitler.

Riefenstahl immediately set about gathering her film crew, which would design and organize how the events would be covered. Prior to the Games the film crew went out to arenas, filmed sporting events, invented new angles and techniques. These would become the vocabulary of sporting event coverage for the rest of the century.

Opening the Games, Berlin, 1936

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