Stephen Marshall

An author and feature film director, Stephen Marshall is the internationally known creator of Channel Zero, the world's first global VHS newsmagazine. Distributed in Tower, Virgin and HMV record stores around the world, Channel Zero became an underground hit and one of the first successes of the small-format video revolution. The Village Voice wrote, "Leave it to a Canadian to revolutionize television." The Toronto Star called Channel Zero, "A mind blowing trip, one neither CNN nor 60 Minutes would ever take." In 1997, Stephen was approached by CNN Chairman Tom Johnson for the creation of a youth-based global news network. The concept was dropped when Time Warner took over CNN. After co-founding the popular underground news site Guerrilla News Network (GNN) in 2000, Stephen directed more than 15 NewsVideos, including the Sundance Award-winning, Crack the CIA, as well as controversial music videos for Beastie Boys, Eminem and 50 Cent. Additionally, he wrote two non-fiction books, True Lies (Penguin/Plume, 2004) and Wolves in Sheep's Clothing (Disinformation/Virgin, 2007). His first feature documentary, BattleGround: 21 Days on the Empire's Edge won the Silver Hugo for Best Documentary at the 2004 Chicago International Film Festival and was acquired by Showtime Network and and Home Vision for tv and home video respectively. This Revolution, his first narrative feature, which starred Rosario Dawson and premiered at Sundance 2005, was released in 2006. His new feature doc, Holy Wars, shot over a three-year period (2006-2008), was edited by Dan Swietlik (Inconvenient Truth, SiCKO) and is currently touring festivals. The critically-acclaimed film has been selected for competition at some of the world's most prestigious festivals, including AFI/Discovery Silverdocs and IDFA. Variety's Justin Chang wrote, "[Marshall's] cool, agnostic approach effectively modulates the intense battle of wills that develops between the uniquely compelling subjects." Moviefone chose it as "one of the best documentaries of 2010." The film was produced in association with Smuggler. Over the span of his career, Stephen has traveled and worked in more than 60 countries.