Andres Veiel’s documentary “Riefenstahl,” which challenges the carefully crafted public persona of one of Germany’s most controversial directors, who was forever tainted by working with the Nazis, is one of 17 German films playing in the various sections of the Venice Film Festival.

A deep dive into Leni Reifenstahl’s previously inaccessible archive, the 160-minute film lifts the lid on secrets the director of the 1935 Nuremberg propaganda film “Triumph of the Will” struggled more than half her life to keep hidden.

Veiel, who was brought onboard to direct by producer Sandra Maischberger of Berlin’s Vincent Films – who had gained unfettered access to Riefenstahl’s archive after the death of her longtime companion and husband Horst Kette in 2016 – is untroubled by the film’s out-of-competition berth as he believes the festival is the right venue for its first showing.

“For me, it is the right festival for the film,” Veiel tells Variety. “The political situation in German and Italy is similar – with the rise of the right-wing, and a longing for propaganda and fake news. For a debate about the film, it is one of the best festivals for us.”

There are also ghosts of the past in Venice – Riefenstahl screened several of her films at the festival in the 1930s, including her two Nazi propaganda films, and her first feature “The Blue Light,” made in 1932. She even had a retrospective on the Lido in the 1950s, at a time when she was just beginning to construct a persona distanced from the Nazis, and – as “Riefenstahl” shows – largely built on lies.

Although not an easy film to watch – as Veiel succeeds in proving her apparent complicity in the murder of Jewish men in Poland and admiration for Hitler – “Riefenstahl” is likely to prove a hot ticket in Venice.

Another much-anticipated film, Tim Fehlbaum’s Munich summer 1972 Olympics feature “September 5,” is playing in the Horizons Extra competition section. Starring Peter Sarsgaard and John Magaro, and revolving around the sports reporting team of U.S. broadcaster ABC, who have to switch from covering track and field events to the Israeli athletes’ hostage crisis, it focuses on how tragic events can also challenge the moral compass of journalists covering them.

In Horizons, Scandar Copti’s “Happy Holidays” tells the story of a Palestinian woman whose double life is revealed after a car accident in Jerusalem, and “Quiet Life,” directed by Alexandros Avranas, focuses on a family of asylum seekers whose hopes of creating a new life in Sweden are dashed when their application is rejected.

Two German co-productions are screening in the main competition – Athina Rachel Tsangari’s “Harvest,” adapted from the prize-winning book of the same name about an unnamed English village that seems to exist in neither time nor place – before it disappears for ever. There is also the Italian-German-U.S. co-production, “Maria” by Pablo Larrain, which tells the story of opera singer Maria Callas.

Looking further ahead, German films are also heading to the Toronto Film Festival.

Key films in the lineup there include Fabian Stumm’s sophomore film “Sad Jokes” playing as an international premiere in the festival’s Discovery section. It focuses on the relationship between Joseph and Sonya – who are raising a son together although their relationship is platonic. Things go awry when Sonya has a breakdown, tearing Joseph’s attention away from a new film project – and the pain of a break-up with his ex-boyfriend, Marc.

Others already announced include “Edge of Night” by Türker Süer; “Seven Days” by Amil Samadi Ahadi, and “The Sunset Special 2” by Nicolas Gebbe.

• The U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO) on Sunday is launching a campaign to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children against polio after the first case of the disease in Gaza in 25 years was reported.
• Much of Gaza’s healthcare system and roads have been destroyed in the Israel-Hamas war. Gaza’s population is spread throughout the enclave in isolated pockets, posing a challenge to the vaccination effort.
• The WHO said it reached an agreement with Israel to implement pauses in fighting to allow the vaccine campaign to take place.

The U.N. health agency and partners are launching a campaign starting Sunday to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children in Gaza against polio, an ambitious effort amid a devastating war that has destroyed the territory’s healthcare system.

The campaign comes after the first polio case was reported in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in the leg. The World Health Organization says the presence of a paralysis case indicates there could be hundreds more who have been infected but aren’t showing symptoms.

Most people who have polio do not experience symptoms, and those who do usually recover in a week or so. But there is no cure, and when polio causes paralysis it is usually permanent. If the paralysis affects breathing muscles, the disease can be fatal.

DEFENSE MINISTER SAYS ISRAEL MUST ‘WIDEN THE GOALS’ OF WAR TO RETURN RESIDENTS TO THE NORTH

The vaccination effort will not be easy: Gaza’s roads are largely destroyed, its hospitals badly damaged and its population spread into isolated pockets.

WHO said Thursday that it has reached an agreement with Israel for limited pauses in the fighting to allow for the vaccination campaign to take place. Even so, such a large-scale campaign will pose major difficulties in a territory blanketed in rubble, where 90% of Palestinians are displaced.

How long will it take?

The three-day vaccination campaign in central Gaza will begin Sunday, during a “humanitarian pause” lasting from 6 a.m. until 3 p.m., and another day can be added if needed, said Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories.

In coordination with Israeli authorities, the effort will then move to southern Gaza and northern Gaza during similar pauses, he said during a news conference by video from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

Who will receive the vaccine?

The vaccination campaign targets 640,000 children under 10, according to WHO. Each child will receive two drops of oral polio vaccine in two rounds, the second to be administered four weeks after the first.

Where are the vaccination sites?

The vaccination sites span Gaza, both inside and outside Israeli evacuation zones, from Rafah in the south to the northern reaches of the territory.

The Ramallah-based Health Ministry said Friday that there would be over 400 “fixed” vaccination sites — the most in Khan Younis, where the population density is the highest and there are 239,300 children under 10. Fixed sites include healthcare centers, hospitals, clinics and field hospitals.

Elsewhere in the territory, there will also be around 230 “outreach” sites — community gathering points that are not traditional medical centers — where vaccines will be distributed.

Where are the vaccines now?

Around 1.3 million doses of the vaccine traveled through the Kerem Shalom checkpoint and are currently being held in “cold-chain storage” in a warehouse in Deir al-Balah. That means the warehouse is able to maintain the correct temperature so the vaccines do not lose their potency.

Another shipment of 400,000 doses is set to be delivered to Gaza soon.

The vaccines will be trucked to distribution sites by a team of over 2,000 medical volunteers, said Ammar Ammar, a spokesperson for UNICEF.

What challenges lie ahead?

Mounting any sort of campaign that requires traversing the Gaza strip and interacting with its medical system is bound to pose difficulties.

The U.N. estimates that approximately 65% of the total road network in Gaza has been damaged. Nineteen of the strip’s 36 hospitals are out of service.

The north of the territory is cut off from the south, and travel between the two areas has been challenging throughout the war because of Israeli military operations. Aid groups have had to suspend trips due to security concerns, after convoys were targeted by the Israeli military.

Peeperkorn said Friday that WHO cannot do house-to-house vaccinations in Gaza, as they have in other polio campaigns. When asked about the viability of the effort, Peeperkorn said WHO thinks “it is feasible if all the pieces of the puzzle are in place. “

How many doses do children need and what happens if they miss a dose?

The World Health Organization says children typically need about three to four doses of oral polio vaccine — two drops per dose — to be protected against polio. If they don’t receive all of the doses, they are vulnerable to infection.

Doctors have previously found that children who are malnourished or who have other illnesses might need more than 10 doses of the oral polio vaccine to be fully protected.

Are there side effects?

Yes, but they are very rare.

Billions of doses of the oral vaccine have been given to children worldwide and it is safe and effective. But in about 1 in 2.7 million doses, the live virus in the vaccine can paralyze the child who receives the drops.

How did this outbreak in Gaza start?

The polio virus that triggered this latest outbreak is a mutated virus from an oral polio vaccine. The oral polio vaccine contains weakened live virus and in very rare cases, that virus is shed by those who are vaccinated and can evolve into a new form capable of starting new epidemics.

Oasis fans seeking tickets to the band’s reunion tour have had to endure hour long waits, and in some cases disappointment, as online platforms have been strained under demand from hundreds of thousands of fans.

The Britpop-era behemoth led by brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher is scheduled to play 17 gigs — its first shows for 15 years — in Cardiff, Manchester, London, Edinburgh and Dublin starting July 4 next year.

More than one million tickets went on sale Saturday morning, with prices starting at about 74 pounds (just under $100).

But some people attempting to get onto the handful of authorised sales sites, including Ticketmaster and Gigs and Tours, received error messages, while many others were informed they were in a lengthy queue.

Josh Jeffery, a videographer who lives near Edinburgh, spent hours moving up the online ticket queue, before “the whole site collapsed” at the last step.

“I’ve given up, my friends have given up,” Jeffery, who first saw Oasis in Manchester as a teenager in 1996, told The Associated Press news agency. “We just decided it’s too much hassle.

“As I was in the queue, I heard Wonderwall blasting out from my neighbour’s house,” he added ruefully. “He’d obviously got tickets.”

Some fans managed to buy tickets through a presale lottery on Friday.

Barista Isabelle Doyle told the AP she was “over the moon” after snagging two seats for one of the band’s London shows.

“I’ve been a fan of Oasis for about 10 years now, literally since I was 11 years old,” the 21-year-old said. “Finally to be able to see them after they got me through as a teenager, it’s absolutely amazing and I’m so excited.”

Within hours, tickets began to be offered on resale websites for as much as 6,000 pounds ($7,800).

Oasis issued a warning, saying tickets could only be resold at face value through authorised sites.

“Tickets appearing on other secondary ticketing sites are either counterfeit or will be cancelled by the promoters,” it said in a statement.

Fans are not just trying to get into the shows.

Cheap hotel rooms also appear to have been replaced by pricier options on travel sites in the reunion tour host cities like Manchester.

Some people reported on social media that hotels had sought to cancel bookings they had made prior to the tour dates being announced, in a bid to relist them at a higher price.

The gigs are expected to provide a multimillion-pound boost for Britain’s hospitality sector and economy.

“There will be huge sums of money spent on merchandise, travel, hotels, bars and restaurants, as well as creating jobs which are all linked directly to these gigs,” Paul Haywood-Schiefer, senior manager at tax advisory firm Blick Rothenberg, told the Reuters news agency.

Although Oasis, one of the biggest British bands of recent decades, said plans were under way to go to other continents, fans were likely to fly in from abroad for the British shows.

“If you want to see Oasis, really the best place to do it is here in the UK where they mean so much,” Sutherland said.

Formed in Manchester in 1991, Oasis was one of the dominant British acts of the 1990s, producing hits including Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back in Anger. Its sound was fuelled by singalong rock choruses and the combustible chemistry between guitarist-songwriter Noel Gallagher and singer sibling Liam.

Oasis split in 2009, with Noel Gallagher quitting the band after a backstage dustup with his brother at a festival near Paris. While the Gallagher brothers, now aged 57 and 51, have not performed together since, both regularly perform Oasis songs at their solo gigs. They have also each fired off criticisms of the other in the press.

Announcing the reunion, the band said fans would experience “the spark and intensity” that occurs only when they appear on stage together.