Born in Singapore and now based in Los Angeles, Leon Cheo is the creator, writer and director of the Emmy®-nominated short form series “People Like Us”. Its first season won ‘Best Short TV Drama’ at the 2016 ITVFest, ‘Best Web Drama Series’ at the Formosa Festival of International Filmmaker Awards, and ‘Best Supporting Actor – Drama’ at the 2017 Indie Series Awards.

Most recently, he was selected for season two of the Hillman Grad / Indeed Rising Voices program in which he is mentored by Destin Daniel Cretton. His latest short film “SIN-SFO” won Best Live Action and Best Director at the 2019 National Youth Film Awards in Singapore. The film premiered in-competition at the Academy Award-qualifying 25th Austin Film Festival. Other highlights include “The Three Sisters” which won ‘Best Short Film’ at the 2012 NETPAC-Jogja Asian Film Festival; “Move Out Notice” which broadcast on the Lifetime (Asia) channel and nominated for Best Script at the Singapore Short Film Awards; “Nuts” which received honourable mention for the YOMYOMF Interpretations 2.0 competition, founded by Justin Lin (“Fast & Furious”)

Commercially, Leon has worked with KFC, HSBC, 7-Eleven, Channel NewsAsia, Pink Dot SG, and government ministries and agencies.

A graduate of Chapman University with a BFA in Creative Producing, and Ngee Ann Polytechnic with a diploma in Film, Sound & Video, Leon is also an alumnus of Outfest InFusion (2016), Berlinale Talents (2014), Asian Film Academy (2013) and Talents Tokyo (2012).