‘Riefenstahl’ unearths new truths about the most famous Nazi propagandist

Leni Riefenstahl wanted to be remembered.

The German filmmaker, who directed the infamous 1935 Nazi propaganda film “Triumph of the Will” that was commissioned by Adolf Hitler, intended for her estate to return to her birthplace, Berlin, after her death. She died in 2003, but it wasn’t until her longtime partner, cinematographer Horst Kettner, died in 2016 that Riefenstahl’s former secretary donated 700 boxes containing fragments of her 101 years — home movies, photographs, handwritten letters and secret phone recordings — to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees museums and cultural institutions in the German capital.