Leonardo Pirondi

LEONARDO PIRONDI is a filmmaker and artist born in São Paulo, Brazil. His films create and inhabit alternate worlds that blur the lines between documentary and fiction, challenging conventional storytelling structures.

Pirondi's films have been shown internationally at film festivals such as Toronto, the Tiger Short Competition in Rotterdam, New York, Viennale, BFI London, Mostra São Paulo, Mar del Plata, Edinburgh, IndieLisboa, Slamdance, Oberhausen, Nouveau Cinéma, RIDM, and FICUNAM among many others…

His work has been presented in art centers such as the Museum of Modern Art Rio de Janeiro, REDCAT, CCCB, ICA London, and the Wexner Center for the Arts. He has had solo shows at Galeria Mola in Portugal and Spectacle Theater in NYC. Some of his films live in the collections of the Cinematheque of the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, UCLA Film & Television Archive, James Baldwin Library at MacDowell, and The Film-Makers' Coop. in New York.

He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in film from the California Institute of the Arts, was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, is a Sundance Institute Fellow, and he was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship. His work has been featured in publications such as ARTFORUM, Filmmaker Magazine, MUBI Notebook, Senses of Cinema, Cineuropa, Talking Shorts, and InReview Online.

His work has been supported by the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual of Portugal, Locarno Film Festival, Sundance Institute, Projeto Paradiso, MacDowell, Allan Sekula Social Documentary Fund, San Diego Underground Arts, and the Tim Disney Prize for Excellence in the Storytelling Arts.