Steve Balderson

Steve Balderson
Steve Balderson circa 2003
Born	(1975-01-19) January 19, 1975 (age 42) Manhattan, Kansas
Occupation	Film director

Stephen Clark Balderson (born January 19, 1975) is an American film director.

Balderson was born in Manhattan, Kansas and raised in nearby Wamego, Kansas until the age of twelve, when his family moved to Manhattan. Balderson attended Manhattan High School." Balderson attended film school at California Institute of the Arts, where he directed six full-length digital movies, including a screen adaptation of Anne Rice's novel The Vampire Lestat. At the end of his third year at CalArts, Balderson realized he'd never had a mid-residency review. When he asked his dean, Hartmut Bitomsky, Bitomsky answered, "Master's students don't have mid-residency reviews." When Bitomsky learned Balderson was an undergrad, he instructed Balderson to stop going to his classes and instead, to do independent study with him. Once a week the two would meet and dissect Alfred Hitchcock films and Steve learned how to focus his vision. After months of working one-on-one with his dean, Balderson decided he was ready to leave CalArts without graduating.

After leaving CalArts in 1996, Balderson returned to Kansas and directed his debut feature film. Pep Squad satirized and predicted American school violence prior to the horrific series of school shootings. After the era of school violence ended in the United States, Pep Squad was released on DVD.

In November 2009, Balderson sold distribution rights for Pep Squad to his mentor Lloyd Kaufman. Kaufman's company Troma Entertainment will handle the DVD re-release.

Balderson’s award-winning second feature film, Firecracker, was released theatrically in 2005 to sold out audiences in a first-ever "Freak Show Tour" supervised by Landmark Theatres, the nation’s largest art house chain. Film critic Roger Ebert called it "Brilliant" and gave Firecracker a Special Jury Award on his list of the year's best films.