Synapse Films to release Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph Of The Will

Synapse Films has just announced plans to release a special edition of Leni Reifenstahl’s Triumph Of The Will (Triumph des Willens) in September. “Triumph Of The Will” is the movie that made Riefenstahl the controversial figure she became. The NAZI propaganda was filmed during the 1934 Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg, Germany, and is considered by many to be one of the most important and controversial films ever made.

The film, realized by Paul Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, was created to influence all of Germany to support the “power” of the Nazi Party. All during World War II in every theatre in Germany, either part of, or all of “Triumph Of The Will” was shown.

Funded entirely by the N. S. D. A. P. (the Nazi Party), Hitler hired the young actress/director Leni Riefenstahl to direct. Money was unlimited, so Riefenstahl was eating and sleeping in the editing room with hundreds of thousands of feet of film for almost a full year. All of the shots in “Triumph Of The Will” are carefully constructed. Sets were specially built to accommodate cameras and Hitler was filmed separately from the crowds so Riefenstahl could edit together a film that would manipulate imagery and seduce the mind.

An historically significant and, at times, horrifyingly manipulative exercise in propaganda for the Nazi regime, TRIUMPH OF THE WILL continues to be controversial over sixty years after its original release. This historical document has been unavailable in Germany for many decades and Leni Riefenstahl has since come under fire for her personal relationship with Adolph Hitler, spending her life in the shadow of collaborating with the Nazi Party.

The DVD will feature a new windowboxed transfer of the film in its original German language with newly translated, optional English subtitles. It will also contain Riefenstahl’s short film “Day Of Freedom” and carry a suggested retail price of $34.98 when it is released on September 12.

Let’s just hope this film won’t inspire some people to new ideals, and synapse Films also wants to express that the issues and views presented in “Triumph Of The Will” are in no way endorsed or supported by Synapse Films, Inc. A portion of the sales of the DVD release of “Triumph Of The Will” will be donated to The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

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