Matthew Leutwyler's journey in the film industry began with a degree in film from The San Francisco Art Institute. He went on to write and direct the cult-comedy/horror/musical Dead & Breakfast, which won numerous audience and best feature film awards worldwide, including a Saturn Award nomination.
Since then, Leutwyler has been involved in various projects as a producer or executive producer, including The Oh In Ohio, Against The Current, Wonderful World, Every Day, Super, The Girl Most Likely, and the food documentary Spinning Plates. He also directed the films The River Why and Uncanny.
In 2019, Leutwyler spent five months directing and co-show-running the 8-episode action-drama series Stat Of Siege: 26/11, based on the true-life events surrounding the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
In 2020, Leutwyler and his producing partner Anton Laines formed KG28Media in Rwanda and began working on a documentary series about an all-female boxing team in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He wrote a dramatized version of their story and went on to direct the feature film Fight Like A Girl, based on the true story of a young Congolese woman who escaped her captors and became a professional boxer.
Fight Like A Girl has received eight Africa Movie Academy Award nominations, including Best Screenplay, Best Lead Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Cinematography. The film is set to premiere on the U.S. film festival circuit in 2024.
Leutwyler and Laines are currently developing several TV series and films in East Africa and India through their production company, including Mattuta Rua (Dead Waters),a thriller set in the Niger Delta, and Orphans v Aliens, about a group of orphans who must defend their orphanage from an alien attack.
Outside of his work in film, Leutwyler is the founder and overseer of the non-profit organization We Are Limitless, which has been providing quality boarding school educations and healthcare to Rwandan and Congolese orphans and underprivileged youth since 2012. He also owns a popular restaurant in Kigali, Rwanda, named Lavana after his mother.
