Jos Stelling was born on 16 July 1945 in Utrecht, as the son of a pastry cook who had eight children already. He got his artistic blood from his mother, who comes from a musically gifted family. For his seventh birthday Stelling got a projector with which he held viewings for children in the neighborhood. But he developed his great passion for film between the age of nine and seventeen when he attended Catholic boarding schools. His main influence at the time was a priest who showed classic films every Sunday and gave enthusiastic interpretations.

After boarding school Stelling spent all of his spare time filming. He had bought an 8-millimetre camera and used it to shoot ‘Tim Lynch’, a film about a lonely boy in Utrecht. He spent ten years experimenting and teaching himself the profession before debuting officially in 1974 with Mariken van Nieumeghen, based on the well-known medieval miracle play. The film was selected for the Official Competition of the Cannes Film Festival. No Dutch film was rewarded with this honour since. With this film, Stelling's cinematographic position was set worldwide.

Not only is Jos Stelling a filmmaker, he is also the owner of Springhaver (1978), a film theatre with a restaurant and café. And in 2004 he opened his Louis Hartlooper Complex, an award winning renovation of a former police station into a cultural centre for film and visual art.

Being the entrepreneur that he is, he started the Dutch Film Days in 1981, meant as a pleasant gathering of the Dutch film world. He was chairman and director until 1991. Later the festival was renamed Nederlands Film Festival (Dutch Film Festival) en has by now developed into a large national festival.

Jos Stelling is married, father of four children, and is a grandfather.