A Real Pain

Two American cousins, one open and volatile, the other reserved and guarded, join a small group tour of Holocaust sites in Poland to mark the death of the grandmother who survived them. As the itinerary moves from city squares to a concentration camp, the differences between the men and the grief each carries come steadily to the surface.

The film sets one man's raw and unmanageable pain against the other's defended containment, tracing inherited trauma and mourning through two temperaments. For a therapist it is a study of how the same loss is carried in opposite ways. It premiered at Sundance in 2024 and won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.