A Colossal Pain
Short Film • One-shot • Real-time
Physical Suspense • Sensory Drama • Experimental Cinema
17 minutes • Brazil
Logline
During the early morning, a 45-year-old man awakens with a sudden and devastating pain.
Alone and unable to stand, he crosses his own apartment in an extreme fight for survival. Filmed in real-time, in a single sequence shot and entirely from his point of view, A Colossal Pain places the viewer inside the collapse of a body — where every second weighs and every step could be the last.
Synopsis
A man wakes up in the middle of the night with a paralyzing pain. There is no one to ask for help. There are no medical explanations. There is no memory, past, or future — only the absolute present of a failing body.
Unable to stand, he begins a physical journey through the spaces of his own home: corridors, doors, stairs, floor. Each movement requires superhuman effort. Each pause threatens oblivion.
A Colossal Pain happens entirely in real-time, without visible cuts, without dialogue, and without dramatic relief. The narrative is guided by an immersive soundtrack and organic environmental sounds — breathing, friction, impact — which replace words and amplify the sensory experience.
The house transforms into a physical and psychological labyrinth. Time does not advance: it weighs heavily.
In the end, the film is anchored in a silent and global reality: it is estimated that more than 100 million people face kidney stone crises every year, and that up to 1 in 10 people worldwide will experience this type of pain in their lifetime. What seems like an intimate event reveals itself to be a collective and universal experience.
Aesthetic and Narrative Proposal
Continuous long take
without visible cuts
Absolute Point of View (POV)
the viewer only sees what the protagonist sees
Real-time
the film's duration matches the experience's duration
Total absence of dialogue
and explanations
Soundtrack as narrative axis
driving rhythm, tension, and emotion
Everyday space as hostile territory
transformed by pain
The film proposes a radical immersive experience: one doesn't merely witness pain — one inhabits pain.
Context and Origin of the Project
A Colossal Pain is born from an extreme limitation adopted as a language
1
idea
1
cell phone
1
apartment
The challenge was to create, in just one week, a professional film rejecting the notion that budget defines artistic scale. The lack of resources is not an obstacle — it is the creative engine itself. Every aesthetic choice arises from precision, technical rigor, and narrative awareness.
The short film is born as a conceptual test, but reveals itself to be a complete and powerful work, capable of dialoguing with contemporary cinema that investigates body, time, presence, and perception.
Director's Statement
"After more than 25 years working in audiovisual, including television, streaming, and associations with major production companies, I understood an uncomfortable reality: the current market reveres a group of already established names, treating them as exclusive validators of what deserves to exist.
A Colossal Pain emerges as a gesture of rupture. A film without budget, without industrial structure, without concessions — made only with technique, precision, and what was within my reach.
This film is not just about surviving extreme physical pain. It is about creatively surviving in a system that confuses relevance with audience and technique with numbers.
If the protagonist finds salvation at the end of the journey, the film also points to the possibility of redemption for independent filmmakers: creative, rigorous, and relevant, even outside the group imposed by players, streamers, and distributors."
About the Director
Felippe Machado Ferreira is a Brazilian director, producer, and editor, with over 25 years of experience in audiovisual. He works with authorial narratives, documentaries, and experimental projects that explore real-time, point of view, and extreme sensory experiences. He has worked on productions for television and streaming and develops works that investigate the body, space, and human limits.
Why this film matters
A Colossal Pain proves that cinema does not depend on scale, but on intention, technical mastery, and aesthetic courage.
It's a film about pain — but also about resistance, language, and creative freedom.
A body in collapse.
An everyday space transformed into a battlefield.
A radical gesture of cinema.