Fractais Tropicais (Tropical Fractals)

Leonardo Pirondi

Los Angeles Premiere

Past event

Price: $12 + $2 Convenience Fee*
Genre: Film
DATE: OCT 14
TIME: WED, 8 PM
RUNTIME: Approx. 90 minutes
COUNTRY: USA
STREAM: WED, 8 PM (PT) (24 hours)
Program: Download Program Notes (PDF)

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About

Fractais Tropicais (Tropical Fractals) depicts environmental collapse and a vision of the post-apocalyptic world. On an interstellar journey, an intelligent system named Museo records the crew’s diaries as Brazilian archivists transport Earth’s last living remnants and their digitized copies. This fractured history of humanity is contrasted with a lone wanderer, perhaps the last man on Earth (played by Ivo Müller), who roams the ruined landscape as it slowly recovers. Shot in Super 16mm, the debut feature film by Leonardo Pirondi (CalArts BFA 22 + MFA 24 in Film and Video) crafts a textured analog visual world in contrast to slick, digitally rendered science fiction visual tropes.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with Leonardo Pirondi and Ivo Müller moderated by Jheanelle Brown.

Fractais Tropicais uses a science fiction premise to explore the insufficient ways we remember a dying world.

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Filmmaker Magazine

With financial support from Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual of Portugal (ICA) & Galeria Mola Arte Contemporânea

With support from Sundance Institute & Sundance Ignite Fellowship, San Diego Underground Arts, MacDowell Fellowship, Allan Sekula Social Documentary Fund, Tim Disney Prize for Excellence in the Storytelling Arts, and IndieLisboa

about the artists

Leonardo Pirondi is a Brazilian-Portuguese filmmaker and artist. His works create and inhabit alternate worlds that blur the lines between reality and fiction, challenging conventional storytelling structures. His films have screened internationally at festivals such as the Toronto, Tiger Short Competition, Viennale, Slamdance, Mar del Plata, IndieLisboa, FICUNAM, BFI London, Nouveau Cinéma, Edinburgh, Oberhausen, and Media City among others. His work has been presented in art centers such as the Museum of Modern Art Rio de Janeiro, CCCB, Wexner Center for the Arts, and REDCAT. He has had solo shows at Galeria Mola in Portugal and Spectacle Theater in NYC. Some of his films live in the Cinematheque of the MAM Rio, UCLA Film & Television Archive, James Baldwin Library, and The Film-Makers’ Coop. He holds BFA and MFA degrees in Film from CalArts. Pirondi was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, is a Sundance Institute Fellow, and was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship in 2025. His short and feature films have been supported by the Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual of Portugal, Locarno Residency, Projeto Paradiso, and the Tim Disney Prize for Excellence in the Storytelling Arts.

Ivo Müller is a Brazilian actor, producer, and teacher whose career bridges theater, film, and television across Brazil and the international scene. On stage, Müller has built a solid trajectory with acclaimed productions such as Twelve Angry Men, which remained in repertory for eight years and received the APCA Award for Best Play in 2010, as well as Huis Clos (No Exit), Stitching, and Dear Listeners. His long-term research with the work of Rainer Maria Rilke led to his solo creations Letters to a Young Poet and Rilke, culminating in the new English-language solo Rilke, One Million Words, premiering in New York in 2025. In cinema, he gained international recognition with Tabu, directed by Miguel Gomes, which was honored at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2012. His credits include features such as Hebe: A Estrela do Brasil, California, O Diabo Mora Aqui (The Devil Lives Here), Cine Marrocos, and Barba Ensopada de Sangue, as well as award-winning short films like The Orphan and The Artificial Humors.