Filmography
Immunity
2026, series development – 6 x 50 min. psychological thriller (developed at Serial Eyes / DFFB Berlin)
SUBTERAN
2025, Producer, Netflix (thriller)
SPY/MASTER
2023, Producer, HBO Max (spy thriller; Berlinale nominee)
ONE TRUE SINGER
2022, Producer, HBO Max (reality competition)
RUXX
2022, Producer, HBO Max (romcom)
IRINA RIMES: ON MY WAY
2022, Producer, HBO Max (docuseries)
TUFF MONEY
2020, Producer, HBO (dramedy)
UMBRE
2019, Development Executive, HBO (crime drama)
HACKERVILLE
2018, Development Executive, HBO (action thriller; Grimme Preis winner)
Background
Ioanina Pavel is a Romanian writer-producer based in Berlin who specialises in genre series. With her indie May One, co-founded with Johnathan Young, she produced the Netflix original thriller SUBTERAN, considered the most successful Romanian title internationally (top 10 across 69 territories).
Ioanina came to writing after years of translating scripts into English for HBO Romania. She later moved into producing and, as HBO's Head of Originals, developed and produced scripted and unscripted series across a wide range of genres. Among the co-productions she worked on are the Romanian-German cyber thriller HACKERVILLE (Grimme Award, 2019) and the Romanian-German spy thriller SPY/MASTER (Berlinale Series Award nominee, 2023).
Her latest project is Immunity, a returnable six-part psychological thriller about an ambassador's wife living the sweet life, until an assault forces her to examine her choices as she suspects her own husband of extremist ties. She created the series as part of her work at Serial Eyes, Europe's foremost postgraduate writing programme for series writers, set up by Frank Spotnitz in 2013. Ioanina was one of twelve writers selected from across the world for the 13th cohort and graduated from the DFFB in Berlin in May 2026.
Alongside her Serial Eyes project, Ioanina has written other genre shows with strong (or getting-there) female leads, whose eye-opening culture clashes make up the emotional core of her pacy brand of storytelling. More recently she has also started writing short-form, snackable content: the rise of the creator economy, user-friendly AI flows and the verticals space have piqued her curiosity about next-gen storytelling that meets the audience where they're at. Ioanina is screen-agnostic and has an encyclopedic knowledge of US and UK television.
She trained at the National Film & Television School in London (Scriptwriting for Film and Television, 2025) and in the Serial Eyes postgraduate programme at the DFFB Berlin (class of 2026). Prior to that she completed a BA in Political Sciences (taught and examined in English) at the University of Bucharest. She is a native speaker of English and Romanian, fluent in French and has a basic command of Spanish.