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Ljubba (director)
Ljubomir Stefanović, (Serbian Cyrillic: Љубомир Стефановић, born on March 23, 1992), known professionally as Ljubba is a Serbian music video director, screenwriter and editor. Currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.

Career
Ljubba was discovered on a Vimeo page by talent scouts of Atlantic Records in 2010. While still attending high school, Ljubba began working for Atlantic Records, Def Jam Recordings, and RCA as a motion graphics designer creating lyric videos for highly acclaimed artist such as B.o.B, Iggy Azalea , Flo Rida , 2 Chainz , Hilary Duff , Jason DeRulo , Trey Songz , Alessia Cara , Trey Songz and more.

Ljubba has received his biggest recognition directing and editing music videos since 2010 for the most popular Serbian and regional artists such as Severina, Milan Stanković, Svetlana Ceca Raznatović, Ana Nikolić, Coby, Maya Berović, Jala Brat, Buba Corelli, Nataša Bekvalac, Nikolija, Emina Jahović. Zoi, Elena Kitić. Anastasija Ražnatović, Angellina, Senidah, Milica Todorović, Katarina Grujić, Miligram, Marina Visković, Seka Aleksić, Sergej Ćetković ...

He is mostly recognizable for his light and dreamy but also dark aesthetics. Realism or surrealism, his work is either way highly controlled and stylized. Ljubba's long term directors of photography are Igor Lazić and Lazar Bogdanović.

Ljubba was awarded "Music video of the Year" by public votes on Music Awards Ceremony two years in a row, in 2018 for "Limunada" by Emina Jahović featuring Milica Todorović and 2019 for "Dođi Mami" by Nataša Bekvala c.

Defining the music video industry and artistry for AdriaDaily Magazine Ljubba opened up and said that for a certain number of people, videos serve just enough not to put a single cover art and for some it is a serious tool for work, continuing "The brave ones are recognized by the public. It's for the song choices and innate predisposition, with an upgrade of visual image and hard work". He directly addressed "For those, I am ready to give my sweat and blood and the greatest possible contribution so together we can shine brighter."

In an interview for Nova S in November 2020, he was asked to describe his work. Ljubba stated: "I am prone to daydreaming and escaping reality. My interest in creating videos started out of the need to change what I see, hear and experience. In addition, I'm a big fan of film and also music. Videos are halfway there. Fairytale and dreamy or dark, realism or surrealism, what I work on must be stylized and controlled. It's a cult of personality we're dealing with", concluding "Music videos are the most suitable terrain for visual expression and creating a world for yourself, so it is a pity not to use this magic".

He described his work as "Escapism", quoting "Each of my videos offers a unique world and an escape from reality for three to four minutes".

"Fatamorgana"
Music video directed by Ljubba for anthemic tropical track performed by Severina. Music video portrays her as glamorous Hollywood diva in the Golden Age stylization.

The video opens with camera going around the living room starting from the spinning vinyl following the maid and panning out the total shot of the diva getting brushed while not even drinking from her golden cup. Obsessed by her looks the diva even owns the magic mirror emphasizing the need to be eternally beautiful. When the sun is slowly setting down, diva is gazing throughout the window looking for her Mr. Right - but it's a fatamorgana.

Severina called it "The Sweetest video and song of album "Halo". Ljubba noted the video was about a woman "Stuck in a vicious circle of fantasy, waiting for her Mr. Right", later described [the video] as his favorite up to date.

"Limunada"
Ljubbas's big commercial effort, "Limunada" strongly centers female solidarity by pairing two of Serbia’s female stars together in wistful sisterly commiseration at "What Men Are Like". The two friends, while dancing together and taking care of each other in a Day-Glo escapist fantasy world created by [Ljubba] sing along “All we want to do is drink lemonade and eat chocolate, somewhere away from the city.”

Ljubba wrote the script for the video and is credited as the director and editor. It was co-directed by Djordje Trbovic as a part of IDJ Videos, a production house based in Serbia. The video was proclaimed the best of the year winning "Music video of the Year" by public votes on Music Awards Ceremony. The song received mostly positive reviews by the critics and the general public stating the music video was a "modern fairytale".

"Brane Mi Te"
"Brane mi te" is the third and final installment of "Tokyo Trillogy" by Milan Stanković directed by Ljubba. The video was co-written by Stanković with cinematography by Igor Lazic. The video gained the record of 1 million views on YouTube in a day.

On the release day, Ljubba wrote a note on his Instagram profile "After 12 years in video production, my most successful and most beautiful video. They will follow it, copy it, try. And we move on from it. Thanks to all the wonderful people who helped and those who see what this is and how much is ahead of everything and everyone. . The video was later plagiarized many times becoming the lead aesthetics in Serbia.

"2000's" (Interactive Music Video)
'2000's, the music video is a breakup party narrative in which the the viewer has the opportunity to choose the ending. It is the first interactive music video in Serbia and one of the few in the world. The video heavily references and pays the tribute to the 2000's iconography and aesthetics. Party girls, braids, glitter, Bratz dolls and Power Rangers, flip phones, vintage Macintosh and Myspace are just some of the nostalgia-infused assets of the video.

Ljubba wrote the script with Elena who described the collaboration as "working with a friend and a professional who is always ahead of time", also having described the project as something done with big attention to the details and 'Seting apart from everything seen in Serbia'. The video was directed by Ljubba, with cinematography by Igor Lazic and production manager Andja Zikic in front of a very long list of cast and crew.

Ljubba has described the video as his "first love redone as a music video" as he "grew up watching MTV". When asked about the creation of "2000's", he sad that as soon as he heard the song he knew what was the visual direction and continued " knew that the video should be a homage to that era. It is full of motives on which my whole generation grew up", later mentioning the main motive of nostalgia and "going back to his childhood". " I wanted people to have a good time watching it."

The general public was surprised when Ljubba revealed how he came up with the idea simply saying "I couldn't decide how it would end and that's how the idea of having two ends came about. Innovation sometimes starts out of uncertainty".

The video was labeled as "revolutionary" by the media, the general public and specially the fans.

"Bilo Je Lepo"
"Blo Je Lepo" is Ljubba's most acclaimed piece of work by general public up to date, quoting "The visualization of the song will be remembered in many ways"

The narrative of the video centers around musical comeback of Ana Nikolic after four year hiatus between album cycles but also the private life prior to addressing her weight gain and the divorce from her husband Rasta under the public eye and spasm of publicity. Ljubba's biggest direction challenge was weighting between telling the tragic life story and portraying Ana as a superstar and a strong woman. Both were connected in the main scene, the terrace in which Ana is shown as a glamorous Hollywood-style diva reading the "Bullshit News" with the "Scandalous" headline and paparazzo candid of when she was in the peak of her weight gain.

There are the scenes of Ana wandering around the hallways, answering the phone and feeling hopeless in a big villa. The other main focus of the video is the library. Ana is recording her story on a dictaphone. Instead of books, the library is filled with bunch of cassettes and dates written on each of them. Later was revealed the dates were Ana's and Ljubba's significant ones. In the end, we see Ana playing one of the cassettes in front of dozens of newspaper reporters. As she hits the "play" button, states "I don't care anymore" which is the motive of the whole video. There is a scene showing a little girl which is a concluded metaphor of Ana's daughter. There is also a gardener in a video but his part was never explained other than revealing her social status.

When commenting the video, Nikolić has sad that even her life seems "all planned up, it couldn't even be directed by Spielberg" continuing "But Ljubba somehow got it - that nothing in my life is accidental".

In an interview on a popular night show AmiG Show Ana described the collaboration between the two "He somehow got into my essence, I can't explain it. He always knew how to direct me, that's why the video is as it is - a movie. Ljubba is a guy who knows what he's doing"

The video gained 2.3 million videos on YouTube in 2 days.

"Jasno Mi Je & Bez Tebe"
Two music videos in a row Ljubba directed for a young and aspiring artist Zoi. The storyline between the videos is connected.

"Jasno mi je" marks the fiirst collaboration between the two. It's visually a complete turnaround from her previous work, marking the complete rebranding. In the interview for Nova S, Zoi stated "All the credit for the video goes to the genius Ljubba and the rest of the team. it's a real honour that we worked together, "Zoe concluded. The video is a narrative about a woman haunting her ex-lover while transcending the emotions from her own purgatory to the man himself.

"Bez Tebe" is a continuation to "Jasno Mi Je". The intro to the video is a big reveal of Zoi with he same looks as in [Jasno Mi Je] with hints of motives from all 3 previous videos of hers before the collaboration with Ljubba. There was even a theory circulating around the internet after the premiere suggesting "All her videos are connected" and that Zoi and Ljubba are repeatedly playing with the cryptic messages and signs"

A visual narrative about friendship and love directed by Ljubba leaves the nature of relationship between two women open for interpretation but strongly suggests an unconditional friendship between. The story takes place in a cold and abandoned museum as a contrast. There is a strong visual bond in form of the same butterfly tattoo which is where the emotion escalates.

Videography
Selected Videography from 2010 until present.

Music
Some news sources have claimed that Ljubba composed dozen of songs under various pseudonyms, but has only admitted to one as "ANTI" and having composed and wrote the track "'Bilo je Lepo" by Ana Nikolić after she publicly spoke about on various occasions and TV shows. Ana has stated that Ljubba was "Shy enough to even play a demo so Marina Tucaković had to send it to [her]"

She talked about the situation prior to sending the demo: "The song was created accidentally and spontaneously. Ljubba, a young man who is engaged in directing and film production made a song. We met through Marina Tucaković and her son Laća. One evening we were at a stupid house party where we soon started playing our own playlist and then cried. He was a DJ and we communicated through music. We continued to socialize and the song came." He also directed the video for the composition.

Along side of emotional nature of the lyrics and the iconography of the video   the phrase "It matters that it used to be beautiful" was the central twitter meme for months. People were addressing the nostalgic times in a sarcastic matter. The themes were various, from fromer Serbian president Slobodan Milosević and his wife Mira Marković to Josip Broz Tito, the passport of SFRJ, Croatian former president Kolinda Grabar Kitarović, but also the lavish love life of Nataša Bekvalac, the breakup between Marko Jarić and Adriana Lima and thousands of others.

Contraversy
On Septermber 24, 2020 a music video for "Pa' Ti" and "Lonely" (collectively referred to as "Pa' Ti + Lonely") are two songs recorded by American singer Jennifer Lopez and Colombian singer Maluma for the soundtrack of the upcoming film, Marry Me (2021) was released.

The fans of Ana Nikolić and Serbian general public and press immediately noticed the huge similarity to the scene of "Bilo je Lepo" directed by Ljubba released February 14, 2020. Not only visual, but also in terms of the plot.

The disputed shots are in the song Pa Ti + Lonely, and the viewers from this area are irresistibly reminiscent of the scenes from the video from Ana Nikolić in the song "It was beautiful" with Jay Lo wearing a turban and having breakfast in the garden with a newspaper. Ana in her video also sits in a similar environment as Jennifer with all the details she has around her and on herself, and they even have similar jewelry. So it didn't take long for people to start speculating how the famous Lopez was inspired by Ana's video or, in other words, copied it. Some media even labeled it as a "International scandal"

When asked about the case, Ljubba wasn't shy to express his opinion. In an interview for Nova S, he released the official statement ""We are not so small and invisible, as we have been televised for years. Many of our authors have brought new things to a field reserved for big players only. Thus, the video that I wrote and directed served as an inspiration to the director of Jennifer Lopez ", says Ljubba, and then further brings the coincidences between these two videos "Apart from aesthetics, which is obviously plagiarized, the same directorial procedures have been taken over. From the character, through the villa to playing with the title page. The only difference is that we told Ana's life story and aroused emotion, and they showed us their wealth once again ", he concludes.