Eva Ionesco

Eva Ionesco is a French actress and filmmaker. She is the daughter of photographer Irina Ionesco and came to international prominence as a child model after being featured in her mother's works.

Early life

Ionesco was born to photographer Irina Ionesco, a Frenchwoman of Romanian descent, who had a relationship with a Hungarian man who worked in the military. Prior to Ionesco's birth, her mother had worked as a contortionist as she had come from a family of circus performers on her maternal side. Her parents separated when she was 3 at which point Ionesco became estranged from her father.
In 1977 her mother lost custody of her and Ionesco lived for a time with the parents of footwear designer Christian Louboutin who had already left home.
From the age of 13 Ionesco became a regular club-goer at Le Palace along with Christian Louboutin and Edwige Belmore and also developed a drug habit. She was in and out of various foster homes until an older boyfriend of hers took custody of her at the age of 16.

Career

At the age of 5, Eva became her mother's favorite photo model. Irina Ionesco's erotic photographs of her young daughter Eva have been a source of controversy since they first appeared in the 1970s. Eva also modeled for other photographers such as Jacques Bourboulon.
She is the youngest model ever to appear in a Playboy nude pictorial, since she was featured at age 11 in the October 1976 issue of the Italian edition of the magazine in a set by Bourboulon. In that picture, she posed nude at a beach. Another of her nude pictorials, in the November 1978 issue of the Spanish edition of Penthouse, was a selection of her mother's photographs. She also appeared on the cover page of Der Spiegel at the age of 12 completely nude. The issue was later expunged from the magazine's records.
She made her film début at the age of 11 in 1976, playing a child in Roman Polanski's film The Tenant. A short time later she was cast in films of the mid-1970s such as Maladolescenza. In the 1980s, Ionesco attended the prestigious acting school Amandiers, directed by Patrice Chéreau and.
Eva claimed her story served as inspiration for Louis Malle's film Pretty Baby.

Directorial career

Ionesco began directing in 2006.
In 2011 she directed her first full-length feature film, My Little Princess, which debuted at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. The film, loosely inspired by Ionesco's personal life, starred Isabelle Huppert as a predatory photographer who uses her young daughter as a model in a series of nude photos.
Ionesco again paired with Isabelle Huppert for her next film, Golden Youth, about a young couple in Paris who begin to spend time with a much older and wealthier couple.

Writing career

In 2015 Ionesco's husband Simon Liberati released a book about their courtship and her childhood called Eva.
In 2017 Ionesco released her first book, Innocence, which dealt with her fractured relationship with her father.

Legal disputes

Since the time in which her mother lost custody of her for repeatedly photographing or allowing Ionesco to be photographed by others completely nude, Ionesco has been engaged in protracted court battles with her mother to censor and reclaim the images taken of her as a child.
She tried three times to sue her mother for emotional distress, and the trial is still going on through various courts in France. In 1998 the French police confiscated from her mother's apartment hundreds of photographs in which she appears at the age of five in suggestive poses and in complete nudity.
In 2012 Eva sued her mother for taking pornographic photos of her as a child. Although much of her claim was denied, she did receive some compensation.

Personal life

Ionesco has a son, Lukas Ionesco, born in 1995.
Since 2013, she has been married to writer and journalist Simon Liberati.

Filmography

As actress

Twice Upon a Time – Annie Arron
Les déferlantes – Lili
Crime – Ella
La famille Wolberg – Sarah, Joseph's Friend
A l'est de moi
J'ai rêvé sous l'eau – Femme Sif
Je vous hais petites filles – Punk Idol
Comédie sentimentale – Marylin
La promenade – The Prostitute #1
La petite fille sous l'océan – Anaïs
Les invisibles – Vanessa
Écoute le temps – Mme Bourmel
Quand je serai star – Alice
Qui perd gagne! – The Deauville Gambler
L’empreinte – Anna Yordanoff
That Woman – Mme Kopmans
Un homme, un vrai – The Producer
Je suis votre homme aka Eros thérapie – Hélène
Il est plus facile pour un chameau... – A Woman at Cinema
Les diable
Un aller simple – Clémentine
Paris mon petit corps est bien las de ce grand monde – Agathe's Friend
L'Oncle Paul – Colombe
Adieu, plancher des vaches! – A Prostitute
La patinoire – The Editor
Maison de famille – Sandra
La nouvelle Eve – A Woman of the PS
Rien que des grandes personnes
Vive la république! – Victor's Woman
La petite maman – The Swimming Teacher
Liberté chérie
Romaine – Pastelle
L'appartement – A Woman at Travel Agency
Encore – Olga
Romaine et les filles
Pullman paradis – Marie-Paule Daragnès
Maigret: Cécile est morte – Florence Boynet
Bête de scène – One of the Daughters
X pour Xana
Montparnasse-Pondichéry – Colette
Rupture – Anna
Grand bonheur – Emma
Comment font les gens? – Emmanuelle
La sévillane – Pascale's Friend
La table d'émeraude
Chant de guerre parisien
Monsieur – Mme Ponz-Romanov
– Margaret
Marie cherchait l'amour
Résidence surveillée
L'amoureuse – Elsa
Hôtel de France – Katia, the Waitress
Jeux d'artifices – Eva
Grenouilles – Kati
Les Nanas – Miss France
La Nuit porte-jarretelles
Meurtres à domicile – Pauline
L'amant de poche – Martine
Maladolescenza – Silvia
Le locataire – Bettina, Madam Gaderian's daughter
''Spermula''
As director
La loi de la forêt
My Little Princess
''Golden Youth''
Theatrical work
La voix humaine by Jean Cocteau
Lola et toi et moi
Penthésilée & La petite Catherine Heilbronn by Heinrich von Kleist
Platonov by Anton Chekhov – Zézette
Le retour au désert by Bernard-Marie Koltès
Le conte d'hiver by William Shakespeare – Mopsa
Chroniques d'une fin d'après-midi by Anton Chekov
Ecrit sur l'eau by Eric Emmanuel Schmitt
Le sang des fraises by Catherine Bidaut