Behind the story of Nadiuska -Roswicha Bertasha Smid Honczar- there are many questions: how can it be that a woman who had it ended up alone and with nothing? This is the first question that journalist Valeria Vegas tries to answer in the documentary El enigma Nadiuska, produced by Atresmedia Television in collaboration with Lavinia Audiovisual. Do you find the answer?

"I think so," he says. "Nadiuska's life is such a huge puzzle that it took 50 interviewees to find out what happened to her." Nadiuska's story is a story of rise and fall into hell full of enigmas to be solved. The story of how the character devoured the person into a broken toy. Victim of all kinds of abuse and mental health problems, victim of an industry that squeezed the most out of her and then turned a deaf ear to her calls for help.

Diagnosed with schizophrenia after going through a real ordeal, this documentary recalls not only who Nadiuska was, a true icon of the 70s who went on to shoot 30 films in 10 years, but also what the truth of this woman was and whether she is still alive today. "In 95 she was already aware that her truth had not been told, and even then she was telling us that she was keeping something to herself. And, obviously, I kept it," Vegas said.

Nadiuska was everything: the most photographed woman in the Spanish press in 1975, the first woman to show her breasts in a magazine, the first cover of Interviú, the woman who was able to release three films in the same month... She had everything, but "they took vile advantage of her," says Ana Valdi, a television director, and one of the people who experienced very closely how the toy was broken. Who took advantage of it? "Mighty men."

Nadiuska's life is such an immense puzzle that it took 50 interviewees to find out what happened to her

Valeria Vegas, director of the documentary

The myth of Nadiuska was born in the 70s by the hand of the then best representative, Damián Rabal, the brother of Paco Rabal, and the man who led the great stars of the time. A "very powerful" man, say those who knew him. "As good he was the best, as bad he was the worst." It was the beginning of Nadiuska's success, but also the beginning of the end.

As revealed in the documentary, which can already be seen on Atresplayer, Damián Rabal was absolutely in control of Nadiuska's life. To such an extent that when the envy of other actresses of the time in the face of Nadiuska's success led them to denounce her to the National Entertainment Union for being a foreigner – at that time no foreigner could work in Spain – it was he who rigged a wedding with a stranger so that Nadiuska could get the roles and continue working. Rabal paid 3,000 pesetas, according to testimonies, to the man who married Nadiuska. Those were the best years of Nadiuska's life: money, a penthouse on the Paseo del Prado, dozens of magazine covers, viewers adored her, all the directors wanted her in their films because Nadiuska assured them of a box office success. Until the freest actress in the film industry of that Spain falls in love with a handsome reporter, Alfonso Ayllón.

No one knew then what this affair was going to mean for the actress. Damián Rabal was madly in love with her. He had his wife, but everyone was aware of how Rabal felt about the actress. Nadiuska says enough is enough and leaves with Ayllón. Rabal then swears that he would make his life impossible "and boy did he do it". The man with the most power in those years of the uncovering cinema destroyed it, invented it, lied and closed all the doors he had opened for her.

"The men destroyed it," they denounce in the documentary, "the one who destroyed it the most, Damián, because after him they would all do it." What happened to make Nadiuska suddenly disappear from public life and cinema in the 80s? The shadow of a black hand hovers over her fall from grace, a bottomless descent that leads The Enigma of Nadiuska to solve whether she is still alive 50 years after touching the sky. Yes, Nadiuska is alive, but for 20 years she has been admitted to a religious psychiatric hospital where the world of success and tragedy she knew is no longer part of her.

"The truth about Nadiuska, among many others, is that she was too closely linked to power, and I don't just mean that of the state," Vegas explains. "Too linked, without wanting to, to that world of powerful men, from Damián Rabal, to the Marquis of Cubas, to the urban legend that she was with the King," she continues. "Sometimes the black hand is the weight of history," says the journalist.

Nadiuska, in one of the countless reports she made in the 70s.

Nadiuska "was afraid," according to several of the documentary's testimonies, and Nadiuska disappeared. "She wasn't crazy, they drove her crazy," says Valdi in The Enigma of Nadiuska. For 15 years, the actress did not release any films and the fact that she was no longer the center of attention led her to deny her past. Nadiuska no longer wanted Nadiuska, she wanted to be Nadia, but she couldn't be because "Nadiuska could no longer be anyone other than Nadiuska," says Bermúdez de Castro in the documentary, one of the men who knew the actress the most and who, despite the fact that he has been offered to participate in other documentaries, only agreed to give his testimony for this one because of how important Nadiuska was to him.

At that time, Nadiuska, a German-Jew, converted to Christianity and stepped away from the spotlight trying to become a businesswoman. Again, the men lead her to ruin. He tries to do so by setting up a production company with Manuel Mateo and Carlos Garnel. He was left with nothing, lost everything, and "from then on he began to get unhinged." Those were the worst years of a woman who was no longer interested in her. "The reports of Nadiuska dressed didn't sell, those of Nadiuska naked, did," says Toni Aliaga, her last representative, in the documentary.

A suicide attempt, a fall into hell, hopeless, forgotten... Nadiuska ends up living in the parking lot of a service area in the La Mancha town of Alcolea. He ate the little they gave him at the Mavi hostel, drank glasses of hot water to warm up and "was very afraid." Why did the alarm never go off? Yes, she jumped, but no one heard her. "No one ever took Nadiuska seriously," they say in the documentary.

If I had been able to interview her, I would have asked her if she has reconciled with Nadiuska

Valeria Vegas

Until Pablo Romero appears in her life, a doctor from a mobile unit who by chance stops in the Alcolea service area and recognizes her. He goes over to talk to her and immediately realizes that the actress suffers from schizophrenia. She was admitted to the hospital in Guadalajara and there she met Salvador Herráez, the man who brought her the peace she needed. Thanks to the Aisge Foundation, the entity that manages the intellectual property rights of actors, dubbers, dancers and stage directors in Spain, he is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He's never been out of there, he's never given an interview again, he's never gone back to his past.

"If I could have interviewed, although I was always clear not to do so because it was exposing her too much, I would ask her if she is aware of everything she meant for this country, despite the fact that for a long time she was made to feel that she was nothing. And I would ask him if he has reconciled with Nadiuska," Valeria Vegas reveals. Because Nadiuska's enigma is not only to discover the innumerable unknowns of an icon, it is also to give her back what was so often taken away from her: recognition.

"For that path you blazed off, for inspiring so many of us... Thank you Nadiuska."