AMAZONS AND THEIR MEN by Jordan Harrison

Inspired by the life and work of Leni Riefenstahl: The Frau used to direct beautiful films for a fascist government. Now she's trying to make a film that's simply beautiful. The Frau casts herself in the lead role of the Amazon queen Penthesilea, who falls in love with Achilles on the battlefield of the Trojan War. She recruits a man from the Jewish ghetto to play her Achilles. The movie’s handsome Achilles, however, is falling for the beautiful young man, a messenger (who the Frau casts as Petroclus) who keeps bringing her telegrams from her “friends” in the Fascist government on the verge of starting a war. Meanwhile, the Frau’s sister, a recurring extra in her films whose specialty is spectacularly dying on camera, is trying to get her to wake up to the ominous goings-on in the world.