Geoffrey Smith was born in Melbourne, Australia and was always fascinated by the moving image. Never at ease in "the lucky country" however, he went travelling to find himself and discovered en route a love of listening and storytelling. In 1987 he found himself in Haiti helping to make to make a documentary about the first election there in 31 years, but following the discovery of a massacre of twenty one voters in a schoolyard he was shot and wounded. Struggling to put his life back together in London, Geoffrey decided to film his journey back to Haiti to find the man who had so nearly killed him. This acclaimed film was subsequently shown on the BBC and was very powerful for the on screen catharsis it intimately portrayed.

Having discovered through this very personal film that the camera could be a powerful tool in helping people through difficult periods in their lives, many of Geoffrey's subsequent films are built around this use of the camera.

Winner of numerous awards, he has made over 22 films for all the major UK broadcasters and is drawn to observational real life dramas where deep ethical and moral dilemmas abound. His feature documentary The English Surgeon was shot inside the KGB hospital in Kyiv and features an original soundtrack by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and his latest film is called Presumed Guilty and premiered at Toronto Film Festival this year.