Ilja Stahl, born in 1976 in Berlin, studied Art Direction at the Red and Yellow Creative School of Business in Cape Town, South Africa. He began his career creating commercials and advertising campaigns as a photographer and director. Over time, Stahl shifted his focus toward experimental filmmaking and photography before pursuing an art degree at the Cologne Academy of Media Arts (KHM). During this period, he expanded his work to include documentary and animated films. 

His 27-minute documentary "Holding Still" (2010), about an almost completely paralyzed American woman who monitors events in her hometown through surveillance cameras, won the ARRI Award at the Munich Film Schools Festival, received the German Short Film Award in Gold, and earned first prize in the NRW competition at the Oberhausen Film Festival. 

In his sixty-minute documentary "Touching Concrete" (2017), Stahl portrayed the notorious Johannesburg district of Hillbrow. This film also screened at several international festivals and was awarded Best Mid-Length Film at the Visions du Réel documentary festival in Nyon, Switzerland. 

In addition to his filmmaking, Stahl has exhibited photographic works in alternative galleries in Berlin and Paris. Together with filmmaker and author Hanna Slak, he published the photo and poetry book "Black Box" in 2016. 

As an actor, Ilja Stahl has appeared in various student films. He made his feature film debut in Hannes Schilling’s award-winning drama "Good News" (2024), which tells the story of a journalist whose career ambitions during a report in Thailand endanger friends and colleagues.