Alina Serban is a renowned actress and filmmaker, renowned for her captivating performances on stage and screen. She has won numerous accolades, including the Best Actress Award at the German Actors Guild Awards 2020 for her leading role in "Gipsy Queen", a nominee for Best Actress of the German Film Awards 2020, and the representative of Romania at The Cannes International Film Festival 2018 for her leading role in "Alone at My Wedding".
Born into a family where education was a rare privilege, Alina Serban was the first to graduate high school. She then went on to graduate from the Tisch School of the Arts in New York and obtained a master's degree from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, becoming an award-winning actress and the first Roma woman theatre and film director in Romania.
As a professional actress, Serban's credits include numerous Shakespeare plays and productions presented at European theatre festivals. She has acted alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC television series 'The Last Enemy', and made her debut on the silver screen with a supporting part in 'Written/Unwritten', a short film that won over 20 awards.
Serban has played the lead role and acted as a script consultant for three European film projects focusing on the experiences of Roma women: 'Written/Unwritten', 'Alone at My Wedding', and 'Gipsy Queen'. Her first leading role in cinema was in Marta Bergman's feature film 'Alone at My Wedding', which premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2018 and earned her several Best Actress awards.
She also stars as a boxer in Huseyin Tabak's 'Gipsy Queen', a German-Austrian production. For her performance in 'Gipsy Queen', she won the 'Best Actress' award at POFF Black Nights Film Festival Tallinn 2019, and was nominated for the German Film Academy Award - LOLA.
In 2020, Serban made her debut as a filmmaker with "Bilet de iertare"/"Letter of Forgiveness"- the first film about the Roma slavery written and directed from a Roma perspective. The short film was awarded a Special Mention for Best Romanian Short Film at TIFF - Transilvania International Film Festival and Best Narrative Director at Female Voices Rock, USA.
As a playwright, Serban has pioneered Roma feminist political theatre, with three plays to her name by the age of 29. She led the way in 2009 with 'Slumdog Roma' (later renamed 'I Declare at My Own Risk'),a poignant and often funny one-woman-show in which she recounts her life journey as a young Roma woman. In 2013, her second award-winning play explored the notion of 'Home'. Three years later, she wrote and directed 'The Great Shame', Romania's first play about the taboo topic of Roma slavery, becoming the first Roma woman director to have a play included in the permanent repertoire of a state theatre in Romania in 2018.
