Director: Alfonso Pineda-Ulloa
Principal Cast: Barbara Mori, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Marina De Tavira, Irene Azuela, Joaquin Cosio, Tony Dalton
Screenwriter: Alex Marino
Producers: Nick Spicer, Billy Rovzar, Fernando Rovzar, Julio Fernandez
Executive Producer: Jim McNamara, Ben Odell
Director of Photography: Damian Garcia
Editor: Jorge Macaya

Night after exhausting night, Chelo's dreams are haunted by handsome,mysterious man with whom she is completely in love. Their heated affair fills her with a passion that turns to longing when the alarm sounds. His nightly appearances begin to take a toll on her personal life, and after a year of dreaming she finds that no flesh-and-blood man can compete with the seductive stranger of her dreams. Though her friends think that her devotion to a nonexistent lover is insane, Chelo will move heaven and earth to find the man who is her destiny. But when she comes close to finding him, more powerful forces intervene and turn her dreams to nightmares. This hypnotic sexual thriller, one of a new genre of commercially savvy Mexican productions, takes the audience on a dark journey through a psychological hall of mirrors. Director Alfonso Pineda-Ulloa jumps back and forth in time and in and out of dreams until the line between the real and the imagined is irrevocably blurred. Actress Bárbara Mori (La Mujer de mi Hermano) is sultry and enchanting as the obsessive Chelo. Seemingly ever-present rain and eerie light infuse the film with a moodiness complemented by stark framing. Pineda-Ulloa reveals himself to be an expert architect of the thriller, leading viewers with every twist of the plot further into an intricately constructed maze. This Hitchcockian puzzler probes the shadowy recesses of love and obsession while exploring with unflinching intensity the fateful link between two strangers.

--Genna Terranova

Alfonso Pineda-Ulloa directed two episodes for Televisa's horror sci-fi TV series 13 Miedos, and his episode "La Esquela" received the highest ratings of the series. He is a proud Independent Film Project "Project Involve" honoree, and he apprenticed with Rodrigo Garcia on Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her and the HBO television series Big Love. Pineda-Ulloa graduated from the Los Angeles Film School, where his concentrations were directing and cinematography, and he is currently finishing an MFA at UCLA. Currently, Pineda-Ulloa has set up his English-language thriller Playback and is seeking partners for three other feature film screenplays he has in development.

Love, Pain, & Vice Versa takes place in a world of loneliness, where reality and fantasy collide on a constant basis as a result of extreme solitude. Love, Pain, & Vice Versa is best described as a perversion of a fairy tale. Life is a never-ending search for love and pleasure. But in our story, this search sours, transforming into obsession and hate and thus producing a uniquely captivating experience.

Love, Pain & Vice Versa is influenced by an urban postmodern magic realism, much like Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie and Christoffer Boe's Reconstruction. Even though reality is our canvas, our story lies in the realm of fantasy. Visually, the story is painted with a fantasy color palette. This element of fantasy is present in the visual design, in every location, in the score, in all the performances, and in every creative decision.
 
Love, Pain, & Vice Versa explores the potent influence of solitude and love in our lives. It portrays a desperate and tragic search for revenge, with raw but minimalist performances to not overplay the fantastical tone. It is a remembrance of a time in our lives when we believed anything was possible, and it shows us how far we are willing to go to satisfy our deepest obsessions.