Leonardo Pirondi is a Brazilian filmmaker. His films explore the infinite abyss between the multiple derived versions of reality through non-conventional structures of documentary, experimental, and narrative modes. Much of his work uses analog film techniques to create, inhabit, and document worlds that explore sociopolitical unfoldings between history, imagination, myth, and technology.

His films have been exhibited worldwide, including the Tiger Short Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival, Viennale, BFI London, Melbourne, Edinburgh, Guanajuato, Slamdance, True/False, Ambulante, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, EMAF and others. Some of his films exist in the UCLA Film & Television Archive collection and the Cinematheque of the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. He holds a Film/Video degree from CalArts, is a Sundance Institute Fellow, and has received the Allan Sekula Social Documentary Fund and Tim Disney Prize for Excellence in the Storytelling Arts.

Fractais Tropicias, an experimental feature-length fiction, will be his next film.

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GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, LABS, AWARDS

  • 2024 - Fundo de Apoio ao Cinema - IndieLisboa & Portugal Film (Fractais Tropicais)

  • 2023/24 - Sundance Ignite Fellowship at MASS MoCA; North Adams, Massachusetts

  • 2023 - Award Winner for Best Experimental Film at Brooklyn Film Festival

  • 2023 - Award Winner for Best Editing at DTLA Film Festival

  • 2023 - Honorable Mention at Onion City Experimental Film Festival

  • 2023 - School of Film/Video Dean's Grant for Student Achievement Travel

  • 2023 - Patty Disney Center for Life & Work Travel Grant

  • 2023 - Tim Disney Prize for Excellence in the Storytelling Arts

  • 2022 - Allan Sekula Social Documentary Fund

  • 2022 - Nominee for Yugo BAFTA Student Award

  • 2022 - Award Winner for Best Experimental Film at Chicago Int. Film Festival: CineYouth

  • 2021/22 - Peter Stark Scholarship

  • 2018/22 - Lillian Disney Scholarship, California Institute of the Arts

  • 2021 - CalArts Student Union Grant

  • 2021 - CalArts School of Film/Video Project Funds

  • 2021 - CalArts Creative Practice Grant

  • 2021 - Peter Stark Scholarship

  • 2020 - CalArts School of Film/Video Project Funds

  • 2020 - CalArts Student Union Grant

  • 2019 - Award Winner for Best Social Commentary Film at Austin Arthouse

  • 2019 - CalArts Student Union Grant

  • 2018 - Award Winner for Best Surrealist Film at Austin Arthouse

  • 2016 - Best Animated Film at South West London International Film Festival

SOLO SHOWS, SPECIAL SCREENINGS, LECTURES

  • 2023/24 - When We Encounter the World: Gallery Installation Piece at Galeria Mola; Braga, Portugal

  • 2023 - When We Encounter The World, preceding The Night Visitors screening at Maysles Documentary Center; New York, USA

  • 2023 - A Night with Leonardo Pirondi and Zazie Ray-Trapido at Spectacle Theater; New York, USA

  • 2023 - University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Department of Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres; Milwaukee, USA

  • 2023 - Earth Grain Pixel: Films by Leonardo Pirondi at Spectacle Theater; New York, USA

  • 2023 - University of Chicago; Chicago, USA

  • 2022 - BORDERS: Films by Leonardo Pirondi at Galeria Mola; Braga, Portugal

  • 2018 - Photo & Video Class at Escola Viva; São Paulo, Brazil

PRESS