When Hitler asked her to film his party’s rally in Nuremberg, Leni Reifenstahl was swiftly transported from dancer, actor, and film director to a controversial image-maker of historic relevance. The year was 1935, and the film, Triumph of Will. It celebrated the “pomp and pageantry” of the Nazi movement so successfully that in 1936, Adolf Hitler assigned her to film the Berlin Olympics.

Olympia: Festival of the People and Festival of Beauty was a sequel to the propaganda that extolled values of physical beauty and Aryan supremacy. With these films, Reifenstahl’s association with the Third Reich cast a long, dark shadow that follows her to this day.