Josef Steiff

As a former licensed social worker, writer/filmmaker Josef Steiff creates work that reflects his interest in the ways that people struggle to make personal sense out of random, impersonal events. Exhibiting in the United States, Europe and Asia, his films include the award-winning shorts Borders, Catching Fire and I Like My Boyfriend Drunk as well as the documentary, How Will I Tell? Surviving Sexual Assault. For MBC Television, he line produced More Beautiful Than A Flower, the first Korean feature-length film to deal openly with physical disabilities, and he has served as general crew on Michael Moore's Roger & Me and Wendy Weinberg's Academy Award-nominated documentary, Beyond Imagining.

His feature work includes writing/directing the last installment of the Split Pillow's experiment in collaborative filmmaking SoulMaid, and producing Rhapsody. He contributed a sound installation to the first major art exhibition regarding HIV in the United States, AIDS: The Artists' Response, and is the writer/performer of the critically acclaimed one-man show Golden Corral that reflects on his experience growing up and working in rural Appalachia.

His books include Storytelling Across Worlds: Transmedia for Creatives and Producers, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Independent Filmmaking, Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: Mission Accomplished or Mission Frakked Up?, Anime and Philosophy: Wide Eyed Wonder, Manga and Philosophy: Fullmetal Metaphysician and Sherlock Holmes and Philosophy: The Footsteps of a Gigantic Mind.

Steiff is the Senior Associate Chair of Film & Video at Columbia College Chicago, overseeing the writing, directing and producing curriculum.

Indican Pictures