Stephen Lennhoff

Stephen Lennhoff (Director) - Is a London based, American born film and television director, producer and writer who has made many successful and award winning shows for many UK and USA broadcasters including the BBC, ITV, C4, Discovery, PBS and MTV. Stephen was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1960. He graduated from Boston College with an MA in Art History. In 1983 he moved to the UK and attended the London International Film School, where he made his first Drama Short, "Highway Hotel", a cryptic work inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper. Remaining in the UK, Stephen began his directing career making music videos for bands like Black Sabbath and Dr. & The Medics, including the video for their number one hit single "Spirit In the Sky". He also produced and directed a number of entertainment news stories for MTV before making the move into UK broadcast television. His early TV directing credits include "Sexual Intercourse Began in 1963", a drama documentary detailing the trial of D. H Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, and numerous programmes for Channel 4's flagship Arts series "Without Walls". During this time he worked with many important cultural figures including Germaine Greer, Erica Jong, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Camille Paglia, Frederic Raphael - helping them to visualise their arguments for TV; and made several documentaries for Channel 4's ground breaking, "Out" series; most notably, "Skin Complex", which explored the use of Skinhead imagery among gay sub cultures. In the years that followed Stephen directed multiple stories for the classic UK cult series "Eurotrash", numerous episodes of the long running adventure travel series "Globetrekker" for Discovery USA and PBS, and took high profile entertainers on the road with the popular UK series', "Graham Norton's Unzipped" (C4), "Dom Joly's Happy Hour, India" (Sky 1) and New York Festivals award winner, "Paul O'Grady's America" (ITV). Building on his comedy credentials he directed the feature film "Rhythm and Blues", a campy cult comedy set in the seedy underworld of London's gay male escorts which premiered at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in 2000. For a brief period Stephen took up residence in Belfast, Northern Ireland where he directed an eclectic mix of drama and comedy for Irish and British TV, including the alternative comedy travel series "How Low Can You Go - Reality Check", several episodes of the Irish language teen drama, "Seacht", and the Irish Crime Drama series "Maru". Stephen continued to work in the factual realm as well. His most notable documentaries include "Confessions of An IRA Informer" (BBC), the IFTA nominated series "Death Duties" (RTE) and "Come Fly With Me, The Real Story of Pan Am", featuring narration by Honor Blackman, (BBC, BBC America). Stephen continues to be based in London where he has more recently produced and directed a comprehensive six part history series detailing the power struggle between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe entitled, "Ottomans Vs. Christians", and several episodes of the Bloomberg TV arts series "Brilliant Ideas".