WBAI-FM Upcoming Program
Cat Radio Cafe

Tue, May 5, 2026 9:00 PM

"BEAUTY FREAK":NAZI FILMMAKER LENI RIEFENSTAHL

BEAUTY FREAK: A PLAY ABOUT NAZI FILMMAKER AND PROPAGANDIST LENI REIFENSTAHL AND POLITICAL CONSCIENCE

On tonight’s show, we’ll be joined by playwright James Clements, director Danilo Gambini and actress Baize Buzan to discuss Beauty Freak, James Clements’s new play about the meteoric rise of filmmaker and Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl, during the creation and promotion of her magnum opus Olympia, a film about the 1936 Berlin Olympics commissioned by the Third Reich, and later, during her 1938 publicity tour in America during which the events of Kristallnacht unfolded. As the regime that supports her artistic vision escalates its campaign of terror and atrocity, Riefenstahl and her colleagues are forced to reckon with their own complicity and responsibilities as artists. The playwright began extensive research on the play ten years ago – in Berlin, Babelsberg, London, Glasgow and Los Angeles, and informed by interviews with people who knew Riefenstahl. 

During that time, he frequently questioned the necessity for telling Riefenstahl’s story today. Now, in the present geopolitical stage of the world, he feels that Beauty Freak has gone from “something allegorical to an urgent and direct warning.”

Hosted by Janet Coleman and David Dozer

 

 


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