A Tarkovskian Short Film
© 2025, Nicolas Van Achter and Unmade Frames Collective. Released under CC0-NC. Commercial use is strictly prohibited.
The candle flickers against the damp stone walls. A draft from the small, high window moves the heavy fabric of the drapes, casting slow, shifting shadows.
BLAISE PASCAL (70s) lies in his modest bed, his breath shallow, his skin pale like old parchment. The faint glow of a dying fire dances on his hollow cheeks.
His SISTER, a nun with tired yet tender eyes, sits beside him, whispering prayers in a low, rhythmic murmur. The sound is almost lost in the distant tolling of a bell, as if calling him somewhere beyond this room.
Pascal’s lips move without sound. He is already drifting.
A cold, lifeless morning. Frost clings to the brittle grass, turning it silver. Mist rolls low over the uneven stones of the churchyard, swallowing the ruins of forgotten graves.
Pascal moves through the fog like a figure carved from time, his cloak heavy with damp, his feet leaving no imprint in the frost.
A BEGGAR (60s) huddles against the church gate, shivering, wrapped in rags. His eyes are dull, empty.
PASCAL: " Take this. There is warmth inside. They will care for you. "
A vast wasteland, endless, silent. The sky is sickly white, neither dawn nor dusk, an absence of color. The ground is a patchwork of cracked earth and shallow pools, reflecting the sky like fractured glass.
The chapel is crumbling, the stone blackened by time, ivy curling like veins along the shattered walls.
Inside, the golden light of dusk filters through broken stained glass, staining the floor with ghostly colors.
KURT: " What’s the point, Blaise? Prayers won’t bring me back. "
PASCAL: " This is not prayer. It’s a thread. Fragile, yes, but strong enough to hold you. "
The air is thick and still. The world is a liminal space, hovering between sleep and waking, between death and something beyond it.
KURT: " You made it. "
PASCAL: " I did not come to bring you back. "
KURT: " I know. "
The wind shifts. The silk ribbon lifts slowly between them, twisting in the unseen wind, before lifting into the sky, dissolving into light.