Longing for Innocence (2023) English · Blu-ray

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Between 1963 and 1976, filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl spent months living among the Nuba people in the Kordofan Province of Sudan, documenting their cultural traditions as well as the everyday activities crucial to their very survival. The Nuba Mountains provided Riefenstahl with a means of rediscovering life in its most essential form, while escaping the notoriety that had overshadowed her in the wake of her notorious propaganda film Triumph of the Will. In this otherworldly setting, Riefenstahl captured stark ethnographic images of statuesque bodies of warriors and women covered in dye, undergoing ritual scarification, and engaging in communal dance—their movements so infectious that the filmmaker was unable to resist participating herself. Riefenstahl herself never completed a film of her Nuba experience, and this special edition, produced by La Tresor (the legal successor of her estate), is the most comprehensive assemblage of the footage ever released. Also featured in this edition is Riefenstahl's final work as director: Impressions Under Water (2002), a documentary record of her passion for scuba diving.