Catalogue > At random

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."

Leonardo Pirondi is a Brazilian filmmaker based in Los Angeles, São Paulo, and Porto. 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 exhibited at various film festivals, institutions, and venues internationally, such as the International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival, BFI London, Melbourne, Edinburgh, True/False, Ambulante, Curtas Vila do Conde, Guanajuato, 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.