Elina Löwensohn (born 11 July 1966) is a Romanian-American actress. She has appeared in American, British and French films such as Simple Men (1992), Schindler's List (1993), Amateur (1994), Nadja (1994), Basquiat (1996), The Wisdom of Crocodiles (1998), A Very Long Engagement (2004), The Wild Boys (2017), After Blue (2021), She Is Conann (2023), and Dragon Dilatation (2024).
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Early life
Elina Löwensohn was born on 11 July 1966 in Bucharest, Romania. Her mother was a ballet dancer and her father worked in the government. After the death of her father, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, her mother emigrated to the United States with her when she was fourteen years old, where her mother went on a hunger strike to get a visa for her.
After finishing high school, Löwensohn studied acting at Michigan State University and at New York University's Playwrights Horizons Theater School and played in independent theatre productions.
Career
Löwensohn started her film career in 1991 with the short film Theory of Achievement. Some of her notable roles are Diana Reiter in Schindler's List (1993), Katya in the 1994 Seinfeld episode "The Gymnast", Annina Nosei in Basquiat (1996), Iris in Six Ways to Sunday (1997), and Anne Levels in The Wisdom of Crocodiles (1998).
In the late 1990s, Löwensohn started working in French cinema and has since appeared in films such as Sombre (1998), Roberto Succo (2001), Doo Wop (2004), A Very Long Engagement (2004), and On War (2008).
In 2010, Löwensohn began a collaborative project with French filmmaker Bertrand Mandico named 20+1 Projections, where they are to make 21 short films in 21 years. Though each film is meant to be a unique narrative and formal work, they are to revolve around the themes of aging and desire. Their first collaboration was in Boro in a Box (2011). Löwensohn also appeared in Mandico's feature films The Wild Boys (2017), After Blue (2021), She Is Conann (2023), and Dragon Dilatation (2024).
In 2019, she played a fictionalized version of herself in Simple Women, the debut feature film of Italian director Chiara Malta.
In 2022, Löwensohn directed the short film Nothing Will Be the Same Again.
Personal life
Löwensohn moved from the United States to France in the late 1990s. She holds dual American and French citizenship.
Since the 2010s, Löwensohn has been in a relationship with French filmmaker and frequent collaborator Bertrand Mandico, with whom she lives in Paris. Mandico and Löwensohn have collaborated on Mandico's 20+1 Projections, a project of 21 short films in 21 years directed by Mandico and starring Löwensohn which documents the aging process of an actress and began with Boro In The Box (2011). Mandico has described Löwensohn as his favorite actress, his artistic double and the actress he dreamed of being.
