Matthew Lessner's first feature film The Woods made history as the first film to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival that used Kickstarter for production financing.
Matthew Lessner funded his short film By Modern Measure using the prize money from the Tom Berman Most Promising Filmmaker Award won at the 2005 Ann Arbor film festival.
In the spring of 2008 Lessner worked as an intern for syndicated news program Democracy Now!.