[1] Jelena Jovanova was born in SR Bosnia and Herzegovina to a Macedonian father from Štip and a Bosnian Serb mother from Prijedor, was raised in Macedonia, then married and moved to Croatia.
Member of Macedonian National Theater since 2006 where she played over twenty-five leading roles.
Her powerful big screen debut was in Juanita Wilson's As If I Am Not There, which has been selected as the Irish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards.
In 2010, she was cast in Angelina Jolie's directorial debut In the Land of Blood and Honey,[2] nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 69th Golden Globe Awards.
This film made her the first Macedonian actress ever to appear in a Hollywood production.