Quick Facts
Biography
Matthew Steven Leutwyler (born July 23, 1969) is an American writer, director, producer.
Life and career
Leutwyler studied film at The San Francisco Art Institute. His first feature film was the dark comedy/road picture Road Kill starring Jennifer Rubin, Erik Palladino, Brian Vander Ark, Anthony Denison, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jon Polito. Made on a shoestring budget of $180,000, the film premiered at the 1999 Santa Barbara International Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film.
He then wrote and directed the cult-comedy/horror/musical Dead & Breakfast (South by Southwest Film Festival 2004), starring Jeremy Sisto, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and David Carradine. The film went on to win over a dozen audience and best feature film awards around the world and was nominated for a Saturn Award. Since then he has produced or exec produced The Oh in Ohio starring Parker Posey and Paul Rudd; Lower Learning with Eva Longoria, Jason Biggs, and Rob Corddry; Against the Current with Joseph Fiennes, Mary Tyler Moore and Justin Kirk (Sundance Film Festival 2009); the Matthew Broderick and Sanaa Lathan drama Wonderful World (Tribeca 2010); and Every Day, starring Helen Hunt and Liev Schreiber (Tribeca Film Festival 2011).
May 6, 2011 Deadline Hollywood announced that he will be producing the Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight)-directed drama The Bitch Posse. He will be producing alongside his Ambush Entertainment partner Miranda Bailey and Title IX partners Virginia Madsen and Karly Meola.
In the past few years, Leutwyler directed the adaptation of the acclaimed novel The River Why (Mill Valley Film Festival 2010) starring William Hurt, Zach Gilford, and Amber Heard. He also exec produced James Gunn's Super (Toronto International Film Festival 2012) starring Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page; the 3D horror comedy Hellbenders and the comedy-drama The Girl Most Likely, starring Kristen Wiig and Annette Bening (Toronto International Film Festival 2011). Additionally, he wrote & directed the ensemble drama Answers to Nothing starring Dane Cook, Barbara Hershey, and Julie Benz.
2014 has seen the release of the award winning food documentary Spinning Plates, that Leutwyler produced. After a successful theatrical run and overwhelming critical praise, the film stayed in the top 10 of docs on iTunes for four months.
Leutwyler stepped into the distribution side of the industry when he co-founded the theatrical distributor The Film Arcade in 2012. For two years, he worked on the marketing of Jill Soloway's Sundance winner and Independent Spirit Award nominee Afternoon Delight starring Kathryn Hahn and Jane Lynch, as well as other Sundance entries The Other Dream Team, and A.C.O.D. with Amy Poehler, Adam Scott, and Jessica Alba. Matthew departed the company in 2014 to concentrate his efforts back on production.
On January 31, 2015 Leutwyler premiered Uncanny at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Uncanny is a science fiction film about the world's first "perfect" Artificial Intelligence who begins to exhibit startling and unnerving emergent behavior when a reporter begins a relationship with the scientist who created it.
He is in development on a political thriller set against the world of Nigerian oil piracy.
Other Work
Matthew has also directed spots for Chevy Volt and Coke Zero and a music video for Egyptian (Imagine Dragons singer Dan Reynolds’s side project).
Philanthropy and activism
Outside of his career as a filmmaker Leutwyler works as a mentor with the Los Angeles-based non-profit The Young Storytellers Foundation. He is also the founder of the non-profit organization We Are Limitless, which is moving children out of orphanages in Rwanda and the DR Congo and into boarding schools. Leutwyler travels to check on the student’s progress 3 to 4 times a year, supplying them with healthcare and other basic needs while promoting critical thinking and independence.
Filmography
- Road Kill (1999) Writer / Director
- This Space Between Us (2000) Writer / Director
- Undressed (2001) (TV series) Director
- Dead & Breakfast (2004) Writer / Director
- The Oh in Ohio (2006) Executive Producer
- Unearthed (2006) Director
- Lower Learning (2008) Producer
- Wonderful World (2008) Producer
- Against the Current (2009) Executive Producer
- The River Why (2010) Director / Editor
- Every Day (2010) Producer
- Answers to Nothing (2011) Director / Editor / Writer
- Super (2011) Executive Producer
- The Bitch Posse (2014) Producer
- Imogene (2013) Executive Producer
- Hellbenders (2013) Executive Producer
- Spinning Plates (2013) Producer
- Uncanny (2015) Director / Editor