She was Berlin's biggest star—so why did history erase her entirely?
"Iwa Wanja - Kissed by Fate, Forgotten by Everyone", is dedicated to the German film star with Bulgarian roots Ivanka Janakieva. The actress's life is full of twists, dramas and blows of fate, and her remarkable film career makes her the only Bulgarian woman with a name in European cinema from its silent period.
Direction
Zaharieva stitches lost fragments into coherent, haunting narrative.
Production
Miraculous recovery of decaying nitrate prints and personal ephemera.
Director
Diana Zaharieva
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Director Zaharieva spent seven years in German archives after a single photograph of Wanja at a 1927 premiere sparked her obsession.
Wanja's 1933 'voluntary' return to Bulgaria wasn't voluntary at all—Goebbels personally rejected her screen test for 'not looking Aryan enough,' a detail the film implies but never states outright.
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