STEVE RYFLE

Steve Ryfle is an author, journalist, and documentary film producer. He has written about film, books, and culture for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Criterion Current, Cineaste, Virginia Quarterly Review, In These Times, Bright Lights Film Journal, Turner Classic Movies, Zyzzyva, POV, Time Out New York, and other publications.

Books

Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, From Godzilla to Kurosawa (Wesleyan University Press, 2017). Co-author, with Ed Godziszewski; with Yuuko Honda-Yun; preface by Martin Scorsese. Available from Amazon.com.

Godzilla Vs. The World: The Politics of Japan’s Disaster Monster (University of Texas Press). Forthcoming.

Desegregating Hollywood: How the Civil Rights Movement Changed Film and Television. Forthcoming.

Japan’s Favorite Mon-Star: The Unauthorized Biography of “The Big G” (ECW). Available from Amazon.com.

Grants and Awards

Visiting Scholar, University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, 2019.

Visiting Research Fellow, Indiana University Black Film Center/Archive, 2018. Read the announcement.

Guest Lectures and Talks

University of Wisconsin-Madison Cinematheque
Indiana University Cinema
UCLA Billy Wilder Theater
Augusta University
Japan Society New York
Japanese American National Museum
American Cinematheque
Los Angeles Arts Society/Frida Cinema
Los Angeles Public Libraries
Los Angeles County Public Libraries
Comic-Con

Documentary Films

Miracle On 42nd Street (D. Alice Elliott; Welcome Change Productions/Honest Engine Films, 2017). Co-writer, with Joal Ryan.

WINNER: Best Documentary Feature, 2020 New York Emmy Awards.
NOW STREAMING on Amazon Prime, Google Play, and other services.
Available on DVD from Amazon.com.
Broadcast premiere on PBS affiliate WNET-NY on November 28, 2018.
Official selection of Franklin International Independent Film Festival; Newport Beach Film Festival; Syracuse International Film Festival; Santa Barbara International Film Festival; DOC NYC documentary festival.
View the trailer.

Bringing Godzilla Down to Size (D. Norman England; Sony Wonder/Classic Media/Happy Enterprises, 2008). Co-producer, co-writer, with Ed Godziszewski.

Official selection of American Cinematheque 8th Annual Festival of Fantasy, Horror, and Science Fiction, Los Angeles, California; 13th Annual Fantasia Film Festival, Montreal, Quebec
A vailable from Amazon.com as a special feature on the “Rodan/War of the Gargantuas” DVD set from Classic Media.
View the trailer.
Read about Bringing Godzilla Down to Size in the Hollywood Reporter.

Blu-Ray and DVD Projects

Steve has produced and/or contributed audio commentaries and special features to numerous DVD and Blu-Ray discs. See the list.