This Oscar-eligible movie has gained international acclaim. See it in Fort Worth

Ali Cook called in more than a few favors to create his new short movie “The Pearl Comb,” which screens at 2:15 p.m. Friday, Oct 31, at The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and again at 9 p.m. at the Aloft Hotel as part of the Lone Star Film Festival.

The movie, a result of Cook’s wild imagination and British legends, is a horror fantasy drama set in 1893 about Betty Lutey (Beatie Edney), while barred from studying medicine, cures someone with Tuberculosis with a mermaid’a cursed pearl comb. Simon Armstrong plays her husband Lutey, Clara Paget plays the mermaid and Cook stars as a doctor investigating Betty.

The legend was about a Cornwall family who claimed they had a comb from a mermaid that allowed them to be healers. “That was the initial story,” he said. “And then I thought, how about I move it hundreds of years forward to Victorian times, when tuberculosis was a big disease?”

It’s also about women’s rights, cure for the disease and a fascination with mermaid tales.

Try packing that into a movie timing in at around 21 minutes.

Then the context: he was making the movie during the 2023 Writer’s Guild of America strike, when union members were protesting poor wages, lack of protection from artificial intelligence and copyright protections.

Then a little more context he also never directed a movie.

“I wanted to know if I can do the whole shebang,” he said of the production which was shot over 30 days and produced by British-based Stigma Films. “So that’s why I decided to direct this. I wanted to know what it was to, pardon the pun, throw myself in at the deep end and to see if I could handle it with a big crew.”

And the experiment paid off. He learned that calling in favors is just what you have to do when making a short movie.

While working with a cast and crew of almost 140 people, he learned about the labor, specifics and challenges when it comes to making a movie during a strike. (British staff were not part of the strike.)

“Everyone was, they were paid, but it was a fraction of their normal fees,” he said. “They were just bored.”

The visual effects staff liked the idea, as he said, of recording more than sand blowing back and forth. “I said, ‘I’ve got a mermaid,’ and they were so excited.”

“When you write these things, you don’t realize that to put someone in the sea, you need a marine safety team,” he said with a laugh. “If you are filming over rocks, you have to film keeping safe in mind, which of course makes total sense. But of course, I’m completely oblivious. “I’m just like, then a mermaid leaps out of the water. I think you need a bit of that naivety when the reality comes up.”

The camera assistant slipped on the wet rocks while filming.

But on the mermaids: Google “mermaids” and a whole subculture not appropriate for print appears. What he learned was a market for women who swim in custom mermaid suits. (Just go to San Marcos, which is the state’s mermaid capital.)

When looking for costumes, getting a mermaid dress was more complicated than he imagined. Prosthetics were too expensive, and top designers cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the end designers settled on a green sleeping bag shaped for a mermaid

“I didn’t even know you could get a, a fur lined wetsuit either,” he said. “It’s just crazy the stuff you have to find out to make this stuff happen.”

He learned all this despite having been a prolific actor in multiple short movies.

The movie is even eligible for an Academy Award following its screening at the Cleveland International Film Festival. It’s also picked up a dozen awards from festivals across the world.

Some viewers, he said, have already called for him to make it into a full feature.

“It is plausible to make it into a feature, but I like the way it is” he said.

He recalled some advice he received from another director.

“A short should be an event with a clear ending. I feel like people have a great premise and a great build, but they don’t know how they’re going to finish it. It still doesn’t make it easier, but those are good things to be mindful of.”

This story was originally published October 30, 2025 at 2:46 PM.