Steven Feinberg is the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Film & Television Office. He was born in Cranston, Rhode Island, on November 15, 1963, and raised in beautiful Cranston, RI. Steven graduated from Cranston High School West (1981), then spent 22 years in Los Angeles, studied cinematography at UCLA, and film and television production at the prestigious USC Cinema School. He worked with every major Hollywood studio as a writer, director, and producer, and officially joined the Writers’ Guild of America in 1987. His internationally successful Village Roadshow studios’ film, FORTRESS, was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Movie in 1994. This resulted in a sequel financed and distributed by Columbia/TriStar Studios.
Since 2004, in his capacity at the RI Film & TV Office, Steven has facilitated over $900 million of film and television production in the state, creating thousands of jobs for local talent, crew, and small businesses, and providing opportunities for students. His collaborations include working with notable talents such as Academy and Emmy award-winning writer/director James L. Brooks, Lord Julian Fellowes, Wes Anderson, Mark Ruffalo, Bette Midler, Richard Gere, and Zoe Saldana. Productions include HBO’s Emmy award-winning series “The Gilded Age,” Disney’s record-breaking “Hocus Pocus 2,” Oscar-nominated “Moonrise Kingdom,” and three seasons of the Peabody award-winning Showtime series “Brotherhood”.
Among the many awards Steven has received, he was the first Annual Imaginative Award winner from New England’s Imagine Magazine, was designated a “Newport Ambassador” by Discover Newport Tourism, has been the Honorary Chairman for Rhode Island’s official Academy Award Oscar Night from 2009 to the present, served as the Vice President on the Board of Directors for “Celebrate Rhode Island” in 2010 to assist families with heating, is a member of the Touro Fraternity, was designated the “Rhode Island Hospitality Ambassador of the Year 2010” by the Ocean State’s Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, received the George M. Cohan Ambassador Award from the Rhode Island International Film Festival in 2011 and is the Vice-President of the Greenwich Odeum Board.
In 2016, Steven wrote, directed, and produced the award-winning documentary PELL, which explores the challenges that Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell faced in creating the “Pell Grant” program and its impact on education and society today. Sponsored by the Lumina Foundation and the Rhode Island Council on the Humanities, PELL premiered at the RI International Film Festival and won the distinguished Providence Film Festival Award for “a New England director whose work brings cinematic excellence to an international audience”. The film also won Best Documentary awards from the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Williamsburg Independent Film Festival. The documentary had a special screening for Congress in Washington, D.C., in February 2022, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Pell Grant program, and was viewed by various dignitaries.
For eight seasons, Steven has been a producer and co-host of the RIPBS weekly series “DOUBLE FEATURE,” which explores the art of cinema by sharing short films from around the world as well as unique interviews with a diversity of moviemakers, both locally and internationally respected. In addition to his full-time responsibilities as the Executive Director of the Rhode Island Film & Television Office, Steven Feinberg was voted by the board of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts to assume the critical position of interim Executive Director of RISCA, beginning December 18, 2021, until July 1, 2022.
In 2022, the Rhode Island International Film Festival honored Mr. Feinberg with the legendary Sam Spiegel Producer award, and the daily digital publication, GOLOCALPROV.com, named Steven Feinberg as one of the 22 Most Influential Rhode Islanders in 2022.
On June 8, 2023, the Preservation Society of Newport County honored Mr. Feinberg with the annual Laurel Artisanship Award for distinguished and artistic service to the iconic Newport Mansions and the State of Rhode Island.
This past January 16, 2024, during his annual State of the State televised address, Governor Daniel J. McKee publicly recognized Steven Feinberg and his work at the Rhode Island Film and Television Office as one of the positive highlights that the Ocean State’s citizens should be proud of.
In May 2024, Steven was inducted into Cranston’s Hall of Fame. On May 23, 2024, Steven Feinberg was unanimously elected to the venerable Rhode Island Historical Hall of Fame. He also received an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the University of Rhode Island at the May 2025 commencement.
Steven is also an avid horseman.