Leni Riefenstahl claimed throughout her life that all the gypsies used in the film as extras were treated very well and that "all of them were seen after the war", safe and sound.
It was not until the late 70's and 80's that documents were found proving that she personally went and selected the gypsy extras in the Maxglan-Leopoldskron camp (near Salzburg) for filming in the Dolomites in 1940, and in 1942, in the Marzahn camp for the studio scenes, filmed in Babelsberg. These extras are seen, for instance, in the dancing sequence in the tavern, and when gypsy children run along Pedro when he comes down from the mountain to marry Martha.
It is also now proven that most of the Gypsy extras perished in the Auschwitz extermination camp.
In 2002, the hundred year old Leni Riefenstahl was taken to court by a Roma group for denial of the extermination of the gypsies. As a consequence of the case Riefenstahl made the following apology, "I regret that Sinti & Roma had to suffer during the period of National Socialism. It is known today that many of them were murdered in concentration camps."
Was Germany's second most expensive film at the time.
The film's failure ended Leni Riefenstahl's directing career, though she had success as a photographer in the '60s and '70s.