Leni Riefenstahl was a German actress and director known for her Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938). The controversial nature of her relationship with Adolf Hitler cast a long shadow over the career. Despite this, Riefenstahl’s work remains a premier example of pioneering cinematography techniques, including tracking shots and slow motion. “Where is my guilt? I can regret. I can regret that I made the party film, Triumph of the Will, in 1934. But I cannot regret that I lived in that time,” she once explained. “No anti-Semitic word has ever crossed my lips. I was never anti-Semitic. I did not join the party.” Born Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl on August 22, 1902 in Berlin, Germany, she pursued dancing as child, going on to perform interpretive dance around Germany as a young woman. A foot injury led Riefenstahl to end her dancing career and she began acting in mid-1920s. She famously starred in the successful G.W. Pabst film The White Hell of Piz Palü (1929). Transitioning from acting to directing, she was introduced to the Führer during the early 1930s. Smitten with the young filmmaker, Hitler offered her the rare opportunity to direct films for the Nazi party. After World War II, Reifenstahl was the subject of four denazification proceedings, which found her to be an active Nazi sympathizer, though innocent of any war crimes. During the latter half of her career, the artist spent much of her time in Africa, documenting the indigenous Nuba tribe in Sudan in a series of striking color photographs. She died at the age of 101 on September 8, 2002 in Pöckling, Germany.