Ivan Kraljevic

Ivan Kraljevic was born in Kotor Montenegro on August 13th 1975. He is the son of a Croatian sea captain and Montenegrian banker mother. In 1979 Kotor was shook by a 6.9 earthquake, Ivan survived only because his mom took him out of his bed moments before the stone wall collapsed on on it. Ivan was raised by his maternal great-grandmother, Stana, while both his parents worked. Stana was instrumental in igniting Ivan's love for storytelling. Each night before bedtime she would share stories from her lifetime; she had seen two world wars and countless armies march through their city of Kotor. Stana passed on lessons of true value and human nature to Ivan. In 1991 when the civil war broke out in Yugoslavia Stana was ready with fifty kilo bags of sugar and flour each. Ivan spent his formative years learning English and Italian by watching movies and dreaming about making his own. In January of 1992 at the age of sixteen, Ivan had to move to the United States as a high school exchange student to avoid being drafted into both the Croatian and Serbian armies, which were in conflict with each other at the time. Ivan had friends and relatives on all three sides of the war. America, along with the help of the Milicevic family, became the nurturing home to replace the one he had just lost. The early tales from his great-grandmother, the journey out of conflict and finding his way in the United States gave Ivan fuel for his lifelong love of filmmaking and storytelling. Ivan joined the Directors Guild in 1999, he has won multiple awards and festivals for his Directing work. With over one hundred projects completed in various capacities and Directing his first feature film "The Harvesting" in 2015 Ivan is motivated more than ever to continue and see where his journey leads.