A famous director and her controversial films during Nazi Germany

Richard Boyle's piece on Lester James Peiris (The Sunday Times of April 29) compared his long and illustrious career with the German director Leni Riefenstahl's, which spread over seven decades. A remarkable woman, she created two of the most controversial and stunning documentaries ever made.

A ravishing beauty, she began her film career as an actress but soon turned to directing. The 1932 film, The Blue Light was an instant success, creatively and financially. The film caught the eye of Adolf Hitler, himself a fanatic film buff. He commissioned her to record the elaborately staged 1934 Nazi Party Convention at Nuremberg.

Titled Triumph of the Will, it was a mammoth production with the might of the Party mechanism behind her. Riefenstahl had 32 technicians, 32 cameras and 130,000 metres of film to capture the awesome crowds, the endless parades and the fiery speeches.

Hailed as the greatest political propaganda film ever, its strongest point was its brilliant editing, which took six months to complete. Only about 3% of the entire material shot was used. Yet it was a visual spectacle elevating Hitler to a godlike figure.

Her next documentary Olympia that covered the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games has been called the greatest sports movie ever made. It won the Mussolini award at Venice due to political influence, it was alleged. What was deplorable was that on Hitler's orders, it had scanty coverage of the Games' obvious hero, the black American athlete Jesse Owens.

Riefenstahl was never a member of the Nazi Party though she was very close to Hitler - so intimate it was rumoured that they were lovers. She was unaware of the atrocities around her, she said being totally immersed in her artistic pursuits. She was arrested and charged as a Nazi collaborator but later exonerated. She died in 2003 aged 101.

A few days ago the BBC announced the release of a biography titled The Life and Times of Reni Riefenstahl and a forthcoming movie with the Oscar winning star Jodie Foster.

By Asoka Weerakoon, Kandy