Ella Gonzales – 2026 Short Film Script Finalist
Tudor Core
After a hollow promotion, an exhausted perfectionist spirals into an obsession with the Tudors, convinced that escaping modern life might finally make her feel something real.
The idea for Tudor Core came last year while I was recovering from burnout. I found an unexpected sense of escapism and calm in listening to audiobooks detailing daily life in Tudor England and, inevitably, the marriages of Henry VIII.
What began as distraction turned into a genuine obsession. Not only with the Tudors themselves, but with the wider world of historical escapism. I became fascinated by the people who found joy in devoting themselves to other eras: historical cosplayers, re-enactors, LARPers. People who respond to the present by reliving the past, albeit a fantasised version of it. There is something completely understandable about choosing to inhabit a different century when this one feels unsatisfying.
At the same time, I kept hearing the same question from women around me: is this it? That creeping sense that you have built a life that looks successful on paper, yet feels emotionally muted. The particular dissatisfaction of being high-functioning and quietly unfulfilled.
Tudor England occupies a strange space in the British collective myth. It is dramatic, glamorous, chaotic, and excessive. Placed against the strip-lit neutrality of a contemporary office, it feels rich and magnificent. That visual and emotional contrast is the engine of the film.
Tudor Core is a character comedy about female dissatisfaction and escapism. It explores what happens when historical fantasy stops being a hobby and begins to feel like an alternative to modern life. It is playful and slightly absurd, but rooted in something recognisable: a woman trying to feel vivid again. It just happens to involve a Turducken – a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey.
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