Steven Chow

Steven Chow is a first-generation Chinese New Zealand screenwriter, editor, director and video artist.

Born in Ōtautahi and based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Chow’s artistic practice is rooted in a deep passion for cinema. His early video installations, I See When You Sleep, I Hear When You Wake (2011) and You Leave, I Stay Behind (2012), are multi-channel works that draw on the allure of cinematic visual and aural space, as well as the influence of film directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky and Chantal Akerman. Writing about You Leave, I Stay Behind, which was shown at Te Tuhi and was Chow’s first solo exhibition, art critic John Hurrell called the piece a “slyly mesmerising, compelling pleasure for both body and mind.”

These qualities carry through to Chow’s short films. His first student film, Bitter Sweet (1998), which features Asian actors in the main roles, eschews dialogue and plays with non-narrative editing techniques. The Memory Booth (2007) and Tide (2010) are experimental in nature, employing long takes to immerse the audience; while For the Light (2017) recalibrates elements of Chow’s Te Tuhi installation into a vignette of quiet personal reflection, as New Year celebrations take place outside. (Both Tide and For the Light were collaborations with writer Renee Liang.) Using Auckland's picturesque west coast as a backdrop, The Night That Holds You (2018) extends Chow’s poetic sensibilities to an elliptical narrative exploring memory, a central theme of his work.

Munkie (2021), Chow’s short film thesis project for his Master of Arts in Screen Production at the University of Auckland, pivots to genre while touching on aspects of his upbringing. Inspired by true events, the film centres on a daughter of Chinese ‘tiger parents’ and her plan to commit violent revenge. Chow has noted “[my] conflict with my strict parents affected me personally” in an environment of “high expectations where academic success is everything.” Tensely executed, Munkie addresses ideas of parental control, forbidden love and claiming one’s identity, both universally and specifically towards the Asian immigrant diaspora, through dark thriller conventions. In 2021 it premiered at the Fantasia International Film Festival and won the Audience Choice Short Award at the San Diego International Film Festival. A successful North American festival run resulted in pitching opportunities with 20th Digital Studio and distribution offers including Bloody Disgusting (Cinedigm).

Prior to completing Munkie, Chow was set to produce a true crime telefeature on the 2005 murder of Chinese student Wan Biao in Tāmaki Makaurau. Co-written by Chinese New Zealand writer Lynda Chanwai-Earle, whose 2012 play Man in a Suitcase was based on the same murder, The Only Son was shortlisted in 2019 for TVNZ’s Sunday Theatre lineup, but was ultimately passed over for production. On TVNZ drama commissioner Steve Barr’s reasons for rejecting the script, Chanwai-Earle revealed that it “made him cry and the execution was great, but that as a third of the script was in Chinese, the panel felt it would be a barrier to TVNZ’s audience.”

In 2022 Chow co-produced and co-directed Meng with Chinese New Zealand filmmaker and photographer Julie Zhu. A bilingual documentary following a year in the life and work of Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon, Meng was produced for Whakaata Māori and premiered on 12 September 2022, before being released on RNZ’s website for streaming in March 2023.

Steven Chow's website

The Jennifer Pan Case: When Crime Inspires Cinema — a video essay on Munkie

As director:

2022 — Meng (documentary), Whakaata Māori
2010 — Tide (short film)

As writer/director:

2021 — Munkie (short film)
2018 — The Night That Holds You (short film)
2017 — For the Light (short film, co-writer)
2007 — The Memory Booth, short film
1998 — Bitter Sweet, short film

As artist:

2012 — You Leave, I Stay Behind (video installation) Te Tuhi, Auckland
2011 — I See When You Sleep, I Hear When You Wake (video installation), Moving Image Centre, Auckland