Ileana Stanculescu was born in 1976 in Bucharest, Romania, where she grew up. After graduating from the University of Paris X in France, Ileana Stanculescu studied in the script and film-dramaturgy department of the film academy Konrad Wolf in Potsdam-Babelsberg.
During her studies she directed short films and wrote several screenplays. From 2002 to 2004 Ileana Stanculescu worked as a script consultant in the script department of the film academy and in 2003 also in the Berlin based production company Silbersee Film.
In 2004 she graduated with the documentary: Podul peste Tisa, which won among other prizes the First Appearance Award at the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam. It was selected by several major festivals (Moscow Film Festival, Thessaloniki, Sarajevo Film Festival, Silverdocs, etc.) and broadcast on YLE (Finland) and FOX International.
Later on she directed the documentary Satul sosetelor and produced Akhmeteli 4 (by Artchil Khetagouri). Satul sosetelor received the Promotional Prize for Joint Film Productions of the Robert-Bosch-Stiftung. In 2006 it was nominated for the Joris Ivens Award. in Amsterdam and won the British Council Award for the Best Romanian Documentary. In 2007 Ileana participated in the Nipkow Program (Berlin) with one of her latest projects, Noosfera.