This article is jointly published with The Daily Utah Chronicle as part of collaborative coverage of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

We’ve all had an itch. But what happens when mundane discomfort spirals into all-consuming pain? Premiering in the U.S. at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, director Alex Fischman Cárdenas and screenwriter Trout Cohen’s short film “¡PIKA!” explores one man’s desperate, nightmarish quest for relief.

The start of an itch

Inspired by his experience waking up in panic with an unbearable rash in his first days of college, Cohen wrote an early version of “¡PIKA!” at 19 years old. He and Cárdenas met at NYU, and while they couldn’t produce the film in college, the story stuck with them. Years later, Cárdenas said, the impetus for the film came when he was in a difficult bout of depression.

“I thought to myself, ‘God, I really wish I was in Lima right now, in my home country.’ And to me, what that said was like, ‘God, I wish I had someone to take care of me right now.’ Like to help me, to ease me,” he said. “And then I was like, whoa. Maybe I can use the story of the itch and put my own self in there, and use it as a metaphor.”

“Grounded surrealism”

The film is split into two halves, and follows a man, Lucas (Jose Medina), as he wakes up with an itch and frantically runs to the pharmacy to get a cream to treat it, setting forth an absurd, chaotic series of events that Cohen characterized as “grounded surrealism.” The pacing of the first half evokes the feeling of intense discomfort: waves of quick, disorienting cuts as Lucas’ pain intensifies — and then a moment to breathe. 

“When you hit that second half, we give you too much breath. You’re there in almost discomfort in the stillness and the quietness,” Cohen said. “And it’s a looming dread.” 

Lucas is a middle-aged man, but increasingly small and haggard as the itch pushes him to his limit. He becomes more and more childlike throughout the film, a visceral reminder that when faced with insurmountable pain, we are stripped down to our original forms.

To Cárdenas, it’s a sort of reverse coming-of-age story. “There’s this weird feeling as you’re becoming an adult that you’re supposed to be able to take care of yourself, but all you really want is to be taken care of,” he said. 

In search of emotional truth

 “¡PIKA!” was shot over five days in seven different locations in Lima, some of which were the homes of Cárdenas’ friends and family. The surrounding barren desert also provided a critical setting for one of the most visually striking shots in the film. But finding the right actor was challenging. “That process took a long time … I wanted someone who already had this weathered quality to himself,” Cárdenas said. 

What was unique about actor Jose Medina (Lucas), Cohen said, was that he lacked the anxiety of most actors “knowing that [they’re] acting and doing the scene.” Throughout this body-horror film, the viewer may question what to believe. But Lucas’ suffering is irrefutably genuine. It’s seemingly an extension of Medina himself — beautifully grounding the feverish journey of the character. 

Something else “endlessly interesting” to Cohen was the Peruvian cast’s interpretation of the story. The script, to him and Cárdenas, was originally intended to be darkly comedic. “But everyone in Peru was convinced that this was a tragedy from way before we made it,” he said. “So we just kind of ran with what they felt.” 

This extends to the audience’s interpretation of the film. “I don’t like ever classifying things as ‘this is this’ or ‘this is that.’ I just let the emotional truth be the truth,” Cárdenas said. 

“¡PIKA!” reminds us to simply let that truth stand, whatever shocking or uncomfortable forms it takes. “I think the best art comes from opening ourselves, showing the most vulnerable part of who we are, and presenting that to the world,” Cárdenas said. 

Find out more about “¡PIKA!” here.