Geoff Steven

Geoff Steven, who began his career as an experimental filmmaker, was one of the key forces behind 1975's 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 television executive, and a return to his roots as photographer.

After leaving school Steven spent time in Sydney, Japan and Dublin, getting photographic work along the way, including a stint taking stills at Ireland's Ardmore Studios. He returned home early in 1970. Beginning to tire of the static nature of photography, he began making films, and was a key player in the establishment of filmmaker's co-operative Alternative Cinema. By 1973, he had become a member of the Arts Council Working Party on Film, set up to explore the establishment of a cinema industry. 

In 1975 Steven was one of a group who made Test Pictures, shot on a budget of only $14,000. The experimental film explored the relationship between a couple living in an alternative community. Test Pictures screened at film festivals in Auckland, Wellington and Iran, and won some controversy after winning an R18 rating. Scenes from the film can be seen at the beginning of Cowboys of Culture, Steven's documentary about the 70s renaissance of New Zealand cinema. 

Steven was also working on numerous documentaries, including Te Matakite o Aotearoa (1975), about the Māori land march through the length of the North Island, and Aspects of a Small Town (1976), which was filmed in Raetihi.  

With a script development grant from the Arts Council, he began working on the feature film Skin Deep, which was inspired by the Raetihi documentary. It became the first New Zealand feature to get (partial) funding from the NZ Film Commission (then known as the Interim Film Commission). Steven went on to direct, from a script co-written with Piers Davies and Roger Horrocks. 

Skin Deep chronicles a small town's reaction to the arrival of a masseuse from the city. The Listener called it intelligent and perceptive, "a geninely subtle local feature, which scores its pits by parable and a sly, creeping wit that builds gradually towards the overtly outrageous rather than leaping in boots and all". Variety labelled it "New Zealand's long-awaited break-through film." Skin Deep premiered at the 1978 Chicago film festival, and was selected for a new directors' showcase at New York's Museum of Modern Art.

His next feature Strata (1983) was an existential drama involving a disparate group on a barren volcanic landscape. Filmed in the Central Plateau and on White Island, the film had script input from Czech writer Ester Krumbachova, and features a rare score by Kiwi jazzman Mike Nock.

Steven's follow-up was the documentary Signatures of the Soul, about Pacific rim tattoo culture. Hosted by Peter Fonda, it went on to win best Arts and Humanities documentary at the 1985 San Francisco Film Festival. 

His other work includes 1988's Haka - A Musical and a History, and two ambitious documentaries filmed in China (The Humble Force and Gung Ho - Rewi Alley of China.)

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Steven enjoyed a successful career as a television executive and commissioner for TVNZ and TV3, and he is credited with helping to commercialise the documentary format.  

His motto was "No more castor oil documentaries!" and his tenure coincided with the arrival and promotion of reality TV and infotainment. Steven was behind the international launch of the ‘Popstars' phenomenon, and helped commission feature films Once Were Warriors, Scarfies and Stickmen.  

Since leaving TVNZ, Steven has concentrated on art photography, and now leads a team of photographers who contribute to the Our Place - World Heritage Project, a photographic databank of World Heritage Sites.

Sources include
'Massage with a message' (Review of Skin Deep) - Listener, 1978
Variety Staff, 'Skin Deep' (Review) - Variety, 31 December 1977