Summer in Berlin: films that explore the city’s history and landmarks

Be it Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘Olympia’ or Steven Spielberg’s ‘Bridge of Spies’, several films explore the city’s history and landmarks

And so, my peregrinations bring me to Berlin, for the first time in summer. I’d only been here for the justly celebrated Berlin Film Festival, which is held during the winter and the act of rushing from screening to screening keeps you warm at what is truly a miserable time, weather-wise, in this great metropolis. Summer in Berlin, on the other hand, is a glorious time. The sun is shining, Covid is at bay, and vaccinated people are back at cinemas, museums, galleries and restaurants. Pausing only to meet a few filmmaker friends who are based in Berlin, I launched into my musings about films set in this magnificent city without much delay. Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia (1938) in two parts — Festival of Nations and Festival of Beauty — her document of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, is correctly derided as Nazi propaganda, and she was subsequently disgraced. However, there is no denying her immense cinematic talent and the films are beautiful to look at, though the politics and underlying social history cannot and should not be denied.