Leonardo Pirondi
Leonardo Pirondi is a Brazilian film director from São Paulo. Pirondi's work explores the intersection between fiction and non-fiction filmmaking using non-conventional structures of documentary, experimental, and narrative modes. In his films he explores contemporary sociopolitical issues and collective anxieties as a lens to look into history, imagination, myth, and technology.
Education
He studied filmmaking at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in a 16 mm and analog focussed film program with an avant-garde/experimental film tradition.Career
His films have been presented at the Toronto International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival (Currents), Vienna International Film Festival, Mar del Plata International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, Festival du nouveau cinéma, Slamdance, Melbourne International Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Centre de Cultura Contemporànea de Barcelona, and REDCAT.Some of his films exist in the UCLA Film and Television Archive, The Film-Makers' Cooperative in New York, and were deposited at the Cinematheque of the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro after the 4th edition of the 1666 Festival Internacional de Cinema 16mm. He has had solo and retrospective showings of his films at the Spectacle Theater in New York City, and Galeria Mola in Portugal. He took part in the 2023 Sundance Ignite X Adobe Fellowship.
Pirondi's first co-authored project, the 2023 short film titled When We Encounter the World, was co-directed with Zazie Ray-Trapido and it premiered at the 32nd Curtas Vila do Conde followed by the North American Premiere at the 61st New York Film Festival, the Austrian Premiere at the 61st Viennale, and selected to additional exhibitions at 15th Crossroads by the San Francisco Cinematheque, San Diego Underground Film Festival. The film was also shown alongside an interactive exhibition at Galeria Mola in Portugal.
Pirondi's 2024 short film, Potenciais à Deriva, premiered at the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam as part of the Tiger Short Competition, with a North American premiere at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival (Wavelengths) and selected to the 62nd Viennale, 53rd Festival du nouveau cinéma, 49th Mar del Plata International Film Festival, 33rd Curtas Vila do Conde, and 77th Edinburgh International Film Festival. In 2025 the film was selected to the Hong Kong International Film Festival, Prismatic Ground in New York City, and the Umbrales de Vanguardias Latinoamericanas competition at FICUNAM.
Pirondi was selected for the fourth edition of the Locarno Residency, which took place during the 78th Locarno Film Festival. He participated with a feature film project in development titled Amerika'atinga. He received the Paradiso Grant, a support from the Brazilian philanthropic initiative named Projeto Paradiso by the Olga Rabinovich Institute, to attend the Locarno Residency and he also became part of the Paradiso Talent Network.
In 2025, he was named one of Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Independent Film and he was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship for the Fall '25 Winter '26 cycle.