Leash Leader

M.J. Watz was raised in Tucson, Arizona and moved to San Francisco, CA to study Cinema Production at City College of San Francisco, from where she transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles to complete her Bachelor of the Arts at UCLA's school of Theater, Film & Television with a concentration in Cinematography and a Minor in Theater. She received Producing and Directing Skills Certificates from Los Angeles City College's Cinema/TV Department at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Center and studied sketch writing at Upright Citizens Brigade and Tucson Improv Movement. She worked at theaters Cinefamily and The Downtown Independent in Los Angeles, California, and The Loft Cinema in Tucson. She directed live theater performances "The Vagina Monologues", "Murder in the Key of G", and "Bloody Awful". Her video work includes sketch comedy shorts, commercials, PSAs, music videos, and surreal found footage thriller "Devil's Claw" which premiered at the Arizona Sunburn Film Festival in 2016. In 2019 she premiered her first feature stoner horror film "Leash Leader" as a part of Tucson Terrorfest, which she wrote and directed. She performed stand up comedy as a part of Cunts Being Cunts Talking About Cunts in 2018 at Borderlands in Tucson. Themes of her writing are paranoia, anger, addiction, and the importance of complaining.