Ivan, 37, was born in a small city on the Volga River. He studied Journalism at the Lomonossov Moscow State University and got to work with Uma Thurman on his first short film. After that, he worked with the actors Irina Gorbacheva, Anya Chipovskaya, Timofey Tribuntsev, Irina Starshenbaum, Aleksandr Pal, Irina Pegova and Alexey Abramovich. As a creative director at the advertising agency McCann and the film company Bazelevs, Ivan created the ad campaigns for the brands Coca-Cola, Tele2, Nestle, Sber and Alfa Bank. He wrote and directed 3 mini-series, 4 short films, and a mystical feature thriller The Sisters.