[4] Niebeling developed an interest in modern art, classical music and theatre, but was unable to study acting for financial reasons, and therefore enrolled in a business degree at the Mannesmann-AG in Düsseldorf.

[5] In 1957, Niebeling directed his first film Stählerne Adern, a documentary about steel-production at Mannesmann AG, inspired by the German experimental director Walter Ruttmann.

His short film Stahl - Thema mit Variationen is a good example, being an audiovisual poem on steel-production, using only sound and image to explain its subject without any voice-over or other narration.

What results is an exciting and beautiful kaleidoscope of images.Giselle, Niebeling's first ballet-film featuring Carla Fracci, Erik Bruhn and the American Ballet Theatre, premiered in 1969 at the Lincoln Centre in New York under patronage of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and was praised for its innovative visual style that complements the ballet-performance.

[9] In 1991, Niebeling directed a feature-film in Germany showing the passion of Christ based on Bach's Johannespassion, evoking antique tragedy with its combination of music, language and dance.

Of particular interest for him was a proposed film on Bach's Chaconne, which he had already planned in detail and which would have interwoven nature and church architecture through montage and cinematography.