Gary O. Bennett, a writer/director/producer and co-founder of Stonestreet Studios, an independent film studio producing socially provocative films, pilots and series. He wrote and directed Rain Without Thunder, a feature film starring Jeff Daniels, Betty Buckley, Linda Hunt and Steve Zahn, released nationally by Orion Classics after premiering at the San Francisco Film Festival, on the east coast in the NY Human Rights Watch Film Festival, and then The Berlin International Film Festival. 

His latest feature screenplay The Arrival, will be released by Gravitas Ventures, world premiering at Martha’s Vineyard Women’s FF and is premiering opening night at the SVA Theater in Chelsea at the Big Apple Film Festival November 3, 2023. He wrote the screenplay ReRUN, featuring Christopher Lloyd, won awards nationwide including Best Screenplay at the Los Angeles Film Awards after premiering closing night of the Woodstock Film Festival, which also screened at the Northeast Film Festival, where it won Best Narrative Feature, Best Ensemble, Best Original Story, Best Featured Actor (Christopher Lloyd), Best Young Actor (Teo Rapp-Olson), Best Editing and Honorable Mention for Best Director (Alyssa Rallo Bennett) at the 2019 Los Angeles Film Awards, and was a semi-finalist in the Sydney Independent Film Festival. The film is now streaming on AppleTV, Tubi, Amazon.

Gary co-wrote The Pack, directed by Alyssa Rallo Bennett, starring Lucie Arnaz and Elizabeth Moss et al and was accepted into the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival streaming on Amazon Prime, Tubi, AppleTV.  His pilots include Videola, starring Sean Young and Janet Zarish, and Nowhere Girl also directed by his partner, Alyssa and Chris Naoki Lee.  

He has written multiple web-based series including the 250 episode The 47th Floor, featuring Miles Teller, Zach Galligan, Rachel Annette Helson, and many more, and End It All Now, also starring Galligan. 

His scripted crime feature, Who Killed Juliet Matlin? which won Big Apple Film Festival’s Screenplay Competition and recently received an honorable mention in London International Film Festival Feature Screenplay category.  Feature film Juden Rift won the Fade In Award, and his more recently produced screenplays, Compulsion just premiered in the 2023 Soho International Film Festival, Artless which he directed and Madness of Art directed by Alyssa Bennett are currently on the festival circuit with wins at Niagara Falls International Short Festival, Austin International Art Festival, Hudson Valley Film Fest, Manhattan Film Festival and New York Cinefest. 

Gary has written many festival shorts and Stonestreet's branded MicroMovies, now streaming on ShortsTV and StonestreetTV.  His latest play, Colorado, was presented in a staged reading at Playwrights Horizons. Currently he’s working on a new play The Plumber, along with a few screenplays in different stages of development. Gary holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelor of Science in Business from SUNY at Buffalo, and a Law Degree and a Master of Social Welfare Degree from the University of California at Berkeley.