Ivan Stoji

Biography

Instead of buying brunch in middle school, I spent all my money renting VHS tapes; I rented some movies from the video club so many times (never copied), that they gave them to me for nothing. But if you asked me today if these are my favorite movies, we would have to sit down for coffee and talk.

Already in the seventh grade, I knew I would be a director and that the parallel universes I invent daily must somehow become part of other people’s entertainment and reality. How else, if not through film and video?

As a child, I moved non-stop and constantly changed schools and countries, but I did not change languages—the Balkan way of living. I have always lived on the top floor of a building, never in a house, and I loved my views from the window. Even today, I live in such an apartment with a view that liberates.

I’ve never read a lot, so the film made up for many things instead. But I read somewhere that writing is learned by writing; I was 16, and from then, I never stopped writing… at least one page every day; sometimes a poem, a diary, sometimes a page of mumbo jumbo, sometimes a great idea, and sometimes it’s just what came to mind first. (I keep all of those notebooks, come to my party if you have some of those, and we can read them simultaneously till the colors melt) That’s how I started many books, sequels of movies I loved, original texts, and original screenplays. At least, that’s how I learned to work with words. I’ve already received prize money twice from the film center for developing my ideas to film scripts. And that makes me super proud.

I wouldn’t say I liked the high school I enrolled in, so I switched to a veterinary medicine school far away from my city. —one of the best decisions in life. Before entering the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, I almost graduated from the Faculty of Japanese Language and Literature. At that point, I knew 5k Kanjis. And I didn’t graduate because I enrolled in my dream faculty that summer, the Faculty of dramatic arts.

After my third year of college, I was on the road, every week somewhere else, following the short movies I directed at different movie festivals. At that point, it was clear to me why directors take a break between films for five years. How could you not when attending festivals and watching your movie with an audience is the best reward ever? I lost almost two years at school because of that. Great time.

I am proud that the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo were held in the same year that I was born, that the hit song of that year was Say, Say, Say, and that one of my favorite film characters, the Terminator, was born that year.

I am Ivan Stoji, with works that, hopefully, will age well so they don’t embarrass me. At least, that is how I like to think while preparing the project. Not to follow the trends. They come and go. I would like to stay!