Ilian was born in Bulgaria in 1981. As a teenager in Germany, he pursued a career as a violinist and has performed on German classical radio. After studying Fine Art at Saint Martins, where he experimented with 16mm film, he completed his training at the UK National Film and Television School in 2008. Since then, he is obsessed with finding new challenges using the medium of film and pushing film language. Ilian has directed, photographed and co-produced Goleshovo and Sofia’s Last Ambulance.