Angel Wagenstein was born in Plovdiv into a Sephardic family, his first language was Ladino. He spent his childhood in France, where his family emigrated for political reasons. After the amnesty, they all returned to their homeland. In 1941 he joined the Communist Party. As a student, he became a member of the anti-fascist resistance, a partisan, was captured and sentenced to death in 1944, but the victory of the Soviet Union in the war saved him. He graduated in Moscow from the department of film dramaturgy of VGIK, the workshop of the winner of two Stalin prizes Leo Arnshtam, director of “Zoya” and “History Lesson”. From 1950 he worked as a screenwriter in Bulgaria and at the legendary DEFA studio in the GDR.
Among the artist’s works are “After the End of the World”, “Shanghai 1937”, the Bulgarian-Soviet drama “Shores in the Fog”, the Greek “Bordello” with Marina Vlady, the television adaptation of “The Little Prince” in 1966 on GDR television, “Adam’s Rib”, Life and Death, dozens of others.
