Geof Bartz

December 03, 1943

Geof Bartz has been the Supervising Editor for HBO Documentary Films since 1998. Geof started his career as an assistant editor on the 1969 CBS special "Simon and Garfunkel: Songs of America" and has gone on to edit, or supervise the editing of, more than 100 non-fiction films, among them the classic documentary "Pumping Iron." Geof was the co-producer and supervising editor of the 1979 NBC Emmy winning series "Lifeline;" and he produced and co-edited the 1984 20th Century Fox feature "Stripper." In 2000 and 2001, two short documentaries Geof cut, "King Gimp" and "Big Mama", won back-to-back Academy Awards. In 2015, his film "Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1" took home the Oscar. The following year "A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness" also won the gold. Additionally, he has edited four other films that have been nominated for Academy Awards. Geof has been nominated for ten Emmys and won four. And films he has cut have received three Peabody and two Columbia-Dupont Awards. In 2017, Geof was admitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He is also a long time member of the American Cinema Editors (A.C.E.) and the Motion Picture Editors Guild. Geof taught "Introduction to Film Editing" at Columbia University from 1978-1998. Interviews with Geof can be found in "The Art of the Documentary" by Megan Cunningham and in "First Cut: Conversations with Film Editors" by Gabriella Oldham. Geof grew up on Detroit's East Side and graduated from the University of Notre Dame (1966, BA) and Columbia University (1969, MFA Film). He lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side with his wife, Lynn. His daughter Juliet is a recent graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern.