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Ioana Flora was born on March 22, 1975, in Pancevo, Serbia. She is the daughter of Ioan Flora, a poet, philologist, and educator. Ioana has appeared in films, television, and theater. She made her debut in the acclaimed Romanian director Cristi Puiu's film Stuff and Dough (Marfa și banii), starring alongside Dragoș Bucur and Alexandru Papadopol. This film was the first Romanian movie to be selected for the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs program at Cannes in 2001 and is credited with initiating the Romanian New Wave cinema movement.
Recently, Ioana starred as the female lead in The Christmas Gift (Cadoul de Crăciun), a short film shortlisted among the top 10 live-action shorts for the 2020 Academy Awards. Directed by Bogdan Mureșanu, the film also won the Best Short Film award at the European Film Awards in 2019.
Critics both in Romania and internationally praise Ioana for being "an intense and instinctive artist who captures nuances with remarkable precision and conveys an inner fire that can carry an entire film."
Ioana earned her BA in acting from the National University of Theatre and Film in Bucharest in 1997. Prior to that, she attended the Architecture High School in Novi Sad, Serbia. She studied piano and classical ballet and is fluent in Romanian, Serbian, and English.
Her filmography includes around 25 national and international productions in both cinema and television. She received the prestigious Best Actress Award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival in 2008 for her role in Adrian Sitaru's Hooked.
Her subsequent film was Outbound (2009), directed by Bogdan George Apetri. This film was screened and awarded at notable international festivals, including the Locarno Film Festival (Official Selection) and the Warsaw Film Festival in 2010, where it won the FIPRESCI and Special Jury Prizes. For her performance, Ioana won Best Supporting Actress at the Gopo Awards in 2012 and was named "Artist of the Year" by Pro Cinema.
In 2010, she appeared in Bora Bora, directed by acclaimed filmmaker Bogdan Mirică, who won the FIPRESCI award at Cannes in 2016 for Dogs.
Described by some critics as possessing profound depth and a simmering strength ready to erupt, Ioana was among 20 actors selected from over 4,300 applicants to participate in the Talent Actors Stage program at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2012.
That same year, director Adrian Sitaru cast her in a leading role in his film Domestic.
In 2013, Ioana received the Romanian Film Union Award (UCIN) for Best Female Performance for her challenging role in Déjà Vu, an independent production directed by Dan Chisu. The Gala jury voted unanimously in her favor.
She then portrayed a complex, unsettling character in the Dutch-Romanian co-production A Long Story (Marea Neagră), directed by Jorien Van Nes. The film premiered in 2013 at the Dutch Film Festival in Utrecht. For her role, Ioana won the Best Actress Award at the 2014 International Film Festival in Aubagne, France.
Her role as Paula in Andrei Cohn's debut film Back Home (Acasă la tata) earned her a second Best Actress Award at the Gopo Awards in 2016, as well as a second UCIN Prize. Back Home opened the European Film Festival that year. Also in 2016, she appeared in One Floor Below (Un etaj mai jos), directed by Radu Muntean, which was featured in the Official Selection of the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes 2015, further highlighting Romanian cinema internationally.
Ioana also starred in the independent short Tie (Scor alb), directed by Marius Olteanu. The film premiered internationally in competition at the Busan Film Festival.
Her most recent on-screen appearance was in the acclaimed short The Christmas Gift (Cadoul de Crăciun), Bogdan Mureșanu’s debut film. Shortlisted by the American Film Academy for the 2020 Oscars in the Best Live Action Short category, the film has won 57 awards, including Best Film at Clermont-Ferrand and Palm Springs festivals. In December 2019, it received the European Academy’s Best Short Film Award in Berlin. Starring Ioana Flora and Adrian Văncică, the short was selected among nine other films from 191 eligible entries.
At the end of 2019, Ioana completed filming Lebensdorf, a feature directed by Vali Hotea, in which she plays a character quite different from her usual roles. Other recent projects include Andrei Gruznitski's Zavera, which premiered at the 2019 Cairo Film Festival, as well as two features slated for release this year: Răzvan Săvescu’s Beginning (Început, 2018) and Ruxandra Ghițescu’s Otto the Barbarian (Otto barbarul, 2018).
Among her television credits are the National Geographic docudrama The Madness of Henry VIII, L'homme pressé produced by TV France and directed by Sébastien Grall (2005), the innovative Romanian police series Good Fellas (Băieți buni, 2003) aired on PRO TV, Donau/Duna/Dunav/Dunărea, a German-Austrian-Serbian-Romanian co-production directed by Goran Rebić, Poor Man, Rich Man (Om sărac, om bogat) directed by Peter Kerek and broadcast by PRO TV, the period series Aniela (2010), and made-for-TV films produced by Acasă TV in 2010.
Ioana’s theater debut took place in Piatra Neamț, where she played lead roles in Vlad Mugur's productions. Since then, she has performed in state theaters as well as in independent and experimental venues. Currently, she portrays Beatrice in a new production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (Mult zgomot pentru nimic), directed by the internationally renowned Andrei Șerban.
When not acting, Ioana directs and organizes performances with underprivileged children, teaches acting, public speaking, and communication, and translates plays.
