Ben Leonberg

Ben Leonberg

Ben Leonberg is an American filmmaker, director, producer, and screenwriter, best known for his feature directorial debut, the 2025 supernatural horror film Good Boy, which he co-wrote and co-produced with his wife, Kari Fischer. Born on November 27, 1987, in Camden, New Jersey, Leonberg earned a B.A. in Film and Television Production from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an MFA in Film Directing/Screenwriting from Columbia University in 2015, where he later taught for over five years. His earlier career includes directing over eleven short films, such as the award-winning Bears Discover Fire and The Fisherman's Wife, and working as a creative director for Virtual Reality. For his debut feature Good Boy, which tells a haunted house story entirely from a dog's perspective, Leonberg cast his own real-life dog, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever named Indy, as the lead. The film was an unconventional production, shot over 400 days across a three-year period, with Leonberg handling directing, co-writing (with Alex Cannon), producing, and cinematography duties, often utilizing practical effects and post-production techniques to achieve the dog's point of view. He currently works as an Assistant Professor in filmmaking at Montana State University.

Person History