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GeoffSteven

  • Director
  • Writer
Geoff-Steven-Key-Profile.jpg

Geoff Steven's career spans documentary, experimental film and photography. In 1978, he directed acclaimed feature Skin Deep, the first major investment by the newly established NZ Film Commission. Steven followed it with Strata and a long run of documentaries, before time as a TV executive at both TV3 and TVNZ. He now heads the Our Place World Heritage Project. 

Screenography

Celebrity Treasure Island - First Episode
2001 Executive Producer Television
Titless Wonders
2001 Network Commissioner Television
Epitaph - Fire at the Coal Face
2001 Network Executive Television

Biography

After beginning his career as a photographer, Geoff Steven was one of the key forces behind 1975 experimental film Test Pictures, only the second feature shot in New Zealand that decade. Since then his work has crossed between the art gallery, the cinema and the small screen, before reinvention as a TV executive, and a return to his photographic roots.

Awards

1985 San Francisco Film Festival (United States)
Best Arts and Humanities Documentary: Signatures of the Soul

1984 Chicago International Film Festival (United States)
Nominated for Best Documentary: Signatures of the Soul

“No more castor oil documentaries!”

— Geoff's motto during his reign at TVNZ

Related images

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Poster for Geoff Steven's documentary Signatures of the Soul, featuring American tattoo artist Bill Salmon.
Supplied by Geoff Steven
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A group of yakuza in Yokohama — a photo taken during the filming of Geoff Steven's 1984 tattooing documentary Signatures of the Soul.
Supplied by Geoff Steven