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shareNarrative Shorts 5 transports viewers through time and imagination, revisiting forgotten histories and the fragile boundary between science, superstition, and faith.
In The Pearl Comb, a Cornish woman in 1893 stuns the medical world with her miraculous healing powers, forcing a skeptical doctor to confront what he cannot explain. Bellywash blends whimsy and folklore as a young girl reimagines the legend of an 18th-century ornamental hermit, turning the past into a dreamscape of wonder. Goldau brings a haunting realism to Switzerland’s deadliest landslide, recreating the devastation of 1806 with breathtaking precision and humanity.
Thursday in March offers a quiet, poignant farewell between mother and daughter against the backdrop of Madrid’s 2004 train bombings. In The Magician, the arrival of electricity in early 20th-century Romania casts a spell of modernity over a small town, where an aging illusionist faces the fading of his own magic. And The Demon Core dramatizes the chilling final moments of a physicist whose split-second heroism saved lives but sealed his own fate.
History, Myth, and the Edge of Discovery is a mesmerizing journey through human invention and imagination—where the past still flickers with mystery, beauty, and consequence.
In this program
The Pearl Comb
Directed by Ali Cook
In 1893, an endearing Cornish fisherman’s wife captures the attention of the medical profession as the first person to ever cure someone of Tuberculosis.
A doctor, hell bent on proving a woman’s place is in the home and not practising medicine, is sent to investigate her miraculous claim – only to discover the source of her unearthly power…
Bellywash
Directed by Isabella Josephine Leon
Inspired by a true story about an 18th century ornamental hermit and a young girls fantastical perspective on this long lost piece of history.
Goldau
Directed by Roman Kaelin
On September 2, 1806, a massive landslide struck the village of Goldau, claiming 457 lives—the most devastating natural disaster in Swiss history. Based on historical records and research, the film relives the tragic moments of that fateful day in real time. A powerful reminder of nature’s untamed force and the fragility of our environment.
Thursday in March
Directed by Luis Murillo Arias
María turns 19 and says goodbye to her mother to take the train. It is a Thursday in March 2004.
The Magician
Directed by Bogdan Muresanu
Sulina, 1910. It is the inauguration of the first electric power station in this Romanian port city. In the jubilation of a modern and cosmopolitan crowd, Ilarion, a prestidigitator from another time, tries to play his last card.
THE DEMON CORE
Directed by J. Zachary Thurman
A dramatization of the final days of Louis Alexander Slotin, the physicist who sacrificed his own life in order to save his colleagues during a criticality incident in 1946 involving a plutonium core known as The Demon Core.
Dates & Times
Chase Park Plaza Cinema
November 12, 2025
5:00 pm
