Leonardo Pirondi
Birth : , São Paulo, Brazil
History
Leonardo Pirondi is a Brazilian filmmaker based in Los Angeles, Porto, and São Paulo. His films explore the infinite abyss between the multiple derived versions of reality through documentary, experimental, and narrative modes. Much of his work uses analog and digital manipulations on celluloid to examine the sociopolitical unfoldings of the intersections between imagination, science, myth, and technology.
His films have been screened and discussed at various film festivals, institutions, and venues internationally, such as the International Film Festival Rotterdam, True/False, BFI London, Edinburgh, Ambulante, Curtas Vila do Conde, Wexner Center, REDCAT, and others. Some of his work exists in the collection of Cinematheque of the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro and The Film-Makers' Cooperative in New York. He holds a Film/Video degree from CalArts, is a Sundance Ignite Fellow, and is the recipient of the Allan Sekula Social Documentary Fund and the Tim Disney Prize for Excellence in the Storytelling Arts.
Producer
This pseudo diary film is made of found materials from an unfinished 16mm film. Potenciais à Deriva is a film started by a Brazilian artist under a pseudonym while living in exile in Los Angeles, California. Isolated shots and previously assembled scenes reveal an intention to create a mysterious film comprised of disembodied interviews, empty rooms, radio recordings, soccer games, and sudden apparitions of the filmmaker that slowly ruminates on Brazil's colonial past, North American Imperialism and the military dictatorship of the time in a paranoid and anxious manner. Be aware that the film's final version never came to exist. This version presented is my mere attempt to produce a film with these otherwise lost images.
Editor
This pseudo diary film is made of found materials from an unfinished 16mm film. Potenciais à Deriva is a film started by a Brazilian artist under a pseudonym while living in exile in Los Angeles, California. Isolated shots and previously assembled scenes reveal an intention to create a mysterious film comprised of disembodied interviews, empty rooms, radio recordings, soccer games, and sudden apparitions of the filmmaker that slowly ruminates on Brazil's colonial past, North American Imperialism and the military dictatorship of the time in a paranoid and anxious manner. Be aware that the film's final version never came to exist. This version presented is my mere attempt to produce a film with these otherwise lost images.
Sound
This pseudo diary film is made of found materials from an unfinished 16mm film. Potenciais à Deriva is a film started by a Brazilian artist under a pseudonym while living in exile in Los Angeles, California. Isolated shots and previously assembled scenes reveal an intention to create a mysterious film comprised of disembodied interviews, empty rooms, radio recordings, soccer games, and sudden apparitions of the filmmaker that slowly ruminates on Brazil's colonial past, North American Imperialism and the military dictatorship of the time in a paranoid and anxious manner. Be aware that the film's final version never came to exist. This version presented is my mere attempt to produce a film with these otherwise lost images.
Director
This pseudo diary film is made of found materials from an unfinished 16mm film. Potenciais à Deriva is a film started by a Brazilian artist under a pseudonym while living in exile in Los Angeles, California. Isolated shots and previously assembled scenes reveal an intention to create a mysterious film comprised of disembodied interviews, empty rooms, radio recordings, soccer games, and sudden apparitions of the filmmaker that slowly ruminates on Brazil's colonial past, North American Imperialism and the military dictatorship of the time in a paranoid and anxious manner. Be aware that the film's final version never came to exist. This version presented is my mere attempt to produce a film with these otherwise lost images.
Sound
Two neighbors bond after a shared traumatic event, a continuous home development creeps into nature's threshold, and a community celebrates freedom. The Instability of Clouds navigates an ecosystem in decay and growth while traversing across its spaces of comfort, spectacle, and disaster. Through the observation and construction of facets within a suburban neighborhood in Southern California, connections between landscape, neighbors, and environment ruminate on the American Dream and its resonances.
Producer
Two neighbors bond after a shared traumatic event, a continuous home development creeps into nature's threshold, and a community celebrates freedom. The Instability of Clouds navigates an ecosystem in decay and growth while traversing across its spaces of comfort, spectacle, and disaster. Through the observation and construction of facets within a suburban neighborhood in Southern California, connections between landscape, neighbors, and environment ruminate on the American Dream and its resonances.
Director
As described by Freud, unheimlich, or 'unhomely,' is described as 'the uncanny.' This film explores a familiar haunted house, or rather a constructed environment haunted by its creators. Designed with dubious goals, this room, or startup screen, is constructed to welcome you to The New Frontier.
Sound
Dr. Eva Ray is 90 years old. She lives in a house by herself outside of Philadelphia. Born in former Yugoslavia, her family fled the Nazis and settled in New York. As a biochemist she worked for NASA and retired in her late 50's. She got divorced after 40 years of marriage and spent her time volunteering in local politics. After many years of independence and freedom, she now feels a deep sense of restlessness and finds herself at a significant turning point. Weaving through her memory and her present, she asks herself what she will do next in what she calls her "final chapter."
Producer
The great voyages to the "New World" were seen as expanding the frontiers of the visible and displacing those of the invisible, therefore maps from that time render the real and imaginary. The film follows a voyage of the Brazilian Military in search of an imaginary island with the same name as their country. In the myth from 1483 Brazil, or Hy-Brazil, is known to exist to the west of Ireland and above the Fortunate Islands. Visão do Paraíso is an examination of the capacity of the human imagination and computer simulations to construct environments. Amidst the fine threshold of the real, simulated, and imagined, the film analyzes the contemporary ideas of virtual reality and their ambition to expand the frontiers of the physical world into a "New World".
Sound
The great voyages to the "New World" were seen as expanding the frontiers of the visible and displacing those of the invisible, therefore maps from that time render the real and imaginary. The film follows a voyage of the Brazilian Military in search of an imaginary island with the same name as their country. In the myth from 1483 Brazil, or Hy-Brazil, is known to exist to the west of Ireland and above the Fortunate Islands. Visão do Paraíso is an examination of the capacity of the human imagination and computer simulations to construct environments. Amidst the fine threshold of the real, simulated, and imagined, the film analyzes the contemporary ideas of virtual reality and their ambition to expand the frontiers of the physical world into a "New World".
Voice-Over
The great voyages to the "New World" were seen as expanding the frontiers of the visible and displacing those of the invisible, therefore maps from that time render the real and imaginary. The film follows a voyage of the Brazilian Military in search of an imaginary island with the same name as their country. In the myth from 1483 Brazil, or Hy-Brazil, is known to exist to the west of Ireland and above the Fortunate Islands. Visão do Paraíso is an examination of the capacity of the human imagination and computer simulations to construct environments. Amidst the fine threshold of the real, simulated, and imagined, the film analyzes the contemporary ideas of virtual reality and their ambition to expand the frontiers of the physical world into a "New World".
Cinematography
The great voyages to the "New World" were seen as expanding the frontiers of the visible and displacing those of the invisible, therefore maps from that time render the real and imaginary. The film follows a voyage of the Brazilian Military in search of an imaginary island with the same name as their country. In the myth from 1483 Brazil, or Hy-Brazil, is known to exist to the west of Ireland and above the Fortunate Islands. Visão do Paraíso is an examination of the capacity of the human imagination and computer simulations to construct environments. Amidst the fine threshold of the real, simulated, and imagined, the film analyzes the contemporary ideas of virtual reality and their ambition to expand the frontiers of the physical world into a "New World".
Editor
The great voyages to the "New World" were seen as expanding the frontiers of the visible and displacing those of the invisible, therefore maps from that time render the real and imaginary. The film follows a voyage of the Brazilian Military in search of an imaginary island with the same name as their country. In the myth from 1483 Brazil, or Hy-Brazil, is known to exist to the west of Ireland and above the Fortunate Islands. Visão do Paraíso is an examination of the capacity of the human imagination and computer simulations to construct environments. Amidst the fine threshold of the real, simulated, and imagined, the film analyzes the contemporary ideas of virtual reality and their ambition to expand the frontiers of the physical world into a "New World".
Director
The great voyages to the "New World" were seen as expanding the frontiers of the visible and displacing those of the invisible, therefore maps from that time render the real and imaginary. The film follows a voyage of the Brazilian Military in search of an imaginary island with the same name as their country. In the myth from 1483 Brazil, or Hy-Brazil, is known to exist to the west of Ireland and above the Fortunate Islands. Visão do Paraíso is an examination of the capacity of the human imagination and computer simulations to construct environments. Amidst the fine threshold of the real, simulated, and imagined, the film analyzes the contemporary ideas of virtual reality and their ambition to expand the frontiers of the physical world into a "New World".
Director of Photography
“Breaking Myths” aims to open the world’s eyes to the fragile and “catastrophic masculinity” of Brazil’s current President Jair Bolsonaro, a fanatical far-right politician who can best be described as the Brazilian Donald Trump — and who is up for a second term this October. The story is told through the lens of the critically acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker and LGBTQ activist Fernando Grostein Andrade (“Abe” Sundance 19), who directed, wrote, and produced the feature alongside creative partner Fernando Siqueira as the first release under his production company in California, FilmSoul Studios.
Director
The rendering of an impeccably constructed computer-generated image displays a disarranged home. Filmed on 16mm and hand-processed, the image is formed through a process that allows imperfections such as hair, dust, and dirt.
Cinematography
A cave named 'Gruta de las Pesadillas' was known to be a place whereby entering the cave with a torch or lamp, you would see your darkest nightmares reflected onto the shiny minerals from the inside. I was given access to a written document describing the experience of a man at the cave in 1914. He writes about leaving his house, going to the cave, and his experience there—This film is a visual and sonic recreation of the described event.
Director
A cave named 'Gruta de las Pesadillas' was known to be a place whereby entering the cave with a torch or lamp, you would see your darkest nightmares reflected onto the shiny minerals from the inside. I was given access to a written document describing the experience of a man at the cave in 1914. He writes about leaving his house, going to the cave, and his experience there—This film is a visual and sonic recreation of the described event.
Music
An imaginary look back at the present and distant past from the point of view of the year 2049. The return of an exile to Los Angeles decades after social and environmental collapse. He recreates the memories of his past (our present), and imagines the lives of those who inhabited his old apartment when he was gone. His sense of displacement elicits a meditation on place, memory and dream.
Producer
Set in the landscapes of Los Angeles, this hybrid documentary seeks to explore harmful cyclical occurrences that exploit natural resources and bring us closer to extinction. Following the discovery of a mysterious metal structure in the desert, this film documents the encased objects found within the structure. This film is made up of speculative recreations of the study conducted, analysis of the found objects, and surrounding landscapes.
Music
Set in the landscapes of Los Angeles, this hybrid documentary seeks to explore harmful cyclical occurrences that exploit natural resources and bring us closer to extinction. Following the discovery of a mysterious metal structure in the desert, this film documents the encased objects found within the structure. This film is made up of speculative recreations of the study conducted, analysis of the found objects, and surrounding landscapes.
Editor
Set in the landscapes of Los Angeles, this hybrid documentary seeks to explore harmful cyclical occurrences that exploit natural resources and bring us closer to extinction. Following the discovery of a mysterious metal structure in the desert, this film documents the encased objects found within the structure. This film is made up of speculative recreations of the study conducted, analysis of the found objects, and surrounding landscapes.
Cinematography
Set in the landscapes of Los Angeles, this hybrid documentary seeks to explore harmful cyclical occurrences that exploit natural resources and bring us closer to extinction. Following the discovery of a mysterious metal structure in the desert, this film documents the encased objects found within the structure. This film is made up of speculative recreations of the study conducted, analysis of the found objects, and surrounding landscapes.
Writer
Set in the landscapes of Los Angeles, this hybrid documentary seeks to explore harmful cyclical occurrences that exploit natural resources and bring us closer to extinction. Following the discovery of a mysterious metal structure in the desert, this film documents the encased objects found within the structure. This film is made up of speculative recreations of the study conducted, analysis of the found objects, and surrounding landscapes.
Director
Set in the landscapes of Los Angeles, this hybrid documentary seeks to explore harmful cyclical occurrences that exploit natural resources and bring us closer to extinction. Following the discovery of a mysterious metal structure in the desert, this film documents the encased objects found within the structure. This film is made up of speculative recreations of the study conducted, analysis of the found objects, and surrounding landscapes.
Director
In Search of Mount Analogue journeys through ocean and land, bringing life to the imagined, metaphorical, and mysterious island from the 1952 novel, Mount Analogue, by René Daumal. The film uses 16mm film to capture computer-generated images that create an immersive, but rather odd, landscape of Mount Analogue.
Editor
an excerpt of a conversation between James and I during the Fall of 2019 - Santa Clarita, CA
Producer
an excerpt of a conversation between James and I during the Fall of 2019 - Santa Clarita, CA
Self (voice)
an excerpt of a conversation between James and I during the Fall of 2019 - Santa Clarita, CA
Animation
an excerpt of a conversation between James and I during the Fall of 2019 - Santa Clarita, CA
Director
an excerpt of a conversation between James and I during the Fall of 2019 - Santa Clarita, CA
Producer
A meditation on the relationship between humans, nature, and technology.
Sound
A meditation on the relationship between humans, nature, and technology.
Music
A meditation on the relationship between humans, nature, and technology.
Director
A meditation on the relationship between humans, nature, and technology.
Cinematography
This is Mine, This is Yours. Do not take mine and I may or may not take yours. A meditation on the unnatural lines drawn by human beings.
Director
This is Mine, This is Yours. Do not take mine and I may or may not take yours. A meditation on the unnatural lines drawn by human beings.
Director
a film by Zazie Ray-Trapido & Leonardo Pirondi
Director
This film is a shot-by-shot remake of the famous short, photo-roman, drama, sci-fi, dystopian film 'La Jetée' by Chris Marker. However, the film is entirely generated by three different artificial intelligences, in fact, the humans creating the sounds and images are simply the vessel of the marvelous machines. As a matter of fact, we have observed their behaviors, their ways of looking at and creating the world, and their films. Now that we have been fed enough, we have copied and ultimately improved the original film.
Director
A film that explores the intersection of a virtual and analog image. Through the hand-processed 16mm and 3D simulation, the film questions what remains.
