Juan Carlos Medina makes his feature directing debut—and his
Festival debut—with
Painless, a thriller weaving two intriguing stories together. One concerns a group of children insensitive to pain kept in a sanatorium at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, while the other is about a neurosurgeon afflicted by a tumor who must find his biological parents in order to get a bone marrow transplant.
Medina co-wrote the script for
Painless with Luis Berdejo. If that name sounds familiar, it's because Berdejo conceived the original idea and wrote the script for the quasi-zombie found footage film
[REC], which
Bloody Disgusting named as one of the Top 20 horror films of the last decade. (If you haven't seen
[REC], perhaps you know of its American shot-for-shot remake,
Quarantine.)
For the score, Medina chose composer Johan Soderqvist, best known for the gorgeous, haunting score he composed for Swedish vampire drama/thriller
Let The Right One In, as well as 2011's Filipino horror film
The Road.
With a plot line centering on war and disease, special effects are integral to
Painless. Among them, the members of the effects team have worked on the following films:
Biutiful,
Hellboy II,
Intruders,
Julia's Eyes,
The Machinist,
The Orphanage,
Pan's Labyrinth, and
The Skin I Live In.
Those involved in the making of
Painless are clearly a talented bunch. Be sure to catch a screening of the film at the
Toronto International Film Festival.
PAINLESS Screening Times:
Sat., Sept. 8th, BLOOR HOT DOCS CINEMA 6:00 PM
Sun., Sept. 9th, CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 6 9:00 PM
Sat., Sept. 15th, SCOTIABANK 3 2:45 PM
