Anna Karina Movies and Career Information

Anna Karina (born Hanne Karin Blarke Bayer on 22 September 1940) is a Danish film actress, director, and screenwriter who has spent most of her working life in France. Karina is known as a muse of the director, Jean-Luc Godard, one of the pioneers of the French New Wave. Her notable collaborations with Godard include The Little Soldier (1960), A Woman Is a Woman (1961) and Vivre sa vie (1962). With A Woman Is a Woman, Karina won the Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival. Karina's mother was a dress shop owner and her father a ship's captain. Before Karina turned one, her father had left her mother. After being raised by her maternal grandparents, where she stayed until the age of four, she spent time in and out of foster homes, before returning to live with her mother from the age of eight. She has described her childhood as "terribly wanting to be loved" and made numerous attempts as a child to run away from home. She began her career in Denmark, where she sang in cabarets and worked as a model playing in commercials. At age 14, she appeared in a Danish short film by Ib Schedes which won a prize at Cannes. She studied dance and painting in Denmark and for a while made a