TOTAL SLIP
Short Film
Project Type: Short Film
Project Status: Pre-Production
Writer and Director: Kiera Sky Torpie
Director of Photography: Molly Scotti
Intimacy Coordinator: Joey Massa
Production Designer: Elia Tzoukermann
LOGLINE
When Alma discovers that her tampon is stuck on the same night she’s dumping her boyfriend, she must find the strength to get it (and the truth) out safely.
SYNOPSIS
Alma and Theo have been going all night - and not in a fun way. After hours of breaking up, Alma goes to the bathroom. She washes her face, dries her eyes, goes to remove her tampon only - it's stuck. So, she resorts to old habit. She asks her now-ex-boyfriend for help.
What follows is a sloppy removal process: unsexy sex positions, cyclical tension and release, tired bickering, all building to the climactic moment where Alma must face the real reason she’s ending things. She’s not broken, she’s not incapable of love - she just doesn’t like him enough.
To make matters worse, Theo’s efforts have backfired, shooting the tampon (and Alma’s confidence) deeper within. All hope is lost until Alma notices a painting on her wall, an abstract image of mother and baby, and she remembers she can push.
In a ridiculous faux-birth-giving sequence, Alma pushes out her tampon, and she and Theo revel in a final ecstasy - a closeness that will disappear at first light.
MORE ABOUT THE PROJECT
Inspired by my friend and production designer’s real life, ‘Total Slip’ tells the story of Alma, a 27-year-old-lost-in-life artist who’s struggling to end things with her adoring but overly co-dependent boyfriend, Theo. When her tampon gets stuck mid-separation, she’s forced to confront the physical manifestation of her emotional deadlock.
That’s where we begin. After hours of breaking up, we meet Alma in the bathroom. She washes her face, dries her eyes, goes to remove her tampon only to find that it’s stuck. So, she resorts to old habit. She returns to her bedroom and asks her now-ex-boyfriend for a hand.
What follows is a sloppy removal process: unsexy sex positions, Freudian slips, tired bickering, all building to the (nearly) climactic moment where Alma must face the real reason she’s ending things. She’s not broken, she’s not incapable of love – she just doesn’t like him enough. It’s over.
But it’s not the end.
One thing break-ups, the female orgasm, and removing a stuck tampon have in common is cyclical tension and release, and while Theo’s confrontational line: You just don’t like me enough! gets us close, it doesn’t take us all the way there. While there might be some truth to Theo’s perspective, it doesn’t answer the dramatic question posed throughout the script: Why can’t she be with him? The crux? Because she’s with him under false pretense: the belief that she needs him to survive. She does not.
In fact, Theo's efforts have actually backfired, shooting the tampon (and Alma’s confidence) deeper within. All hope is lost until Alma notices a painting on her wall, an abstract image of mother and baby, and she remembers she can push.
In a ridiculously climactic faux-birthing sequence, Alma pushes out her tampon, and there it is: the raw and ugly truth. She’s the agent in her rescue.
Meet The Filmmakers
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Allison Buaas
Producer
Allison Buaas is an LA-based producer. She currently serves as the Film Coordinator at LuckyChap, where she started as the assistant to Co-Founder, Josey McNamara. In her role, she supports the development and production of feature films and works closely with creative teams across the company’s slate, helping to bring distinctive filmmaker-driven stories to the screen.
Prior to joining LuckyChap, Buaas earned a BA from The University of Southern California and gained experience in talent representation at Verve. Her recent credits include Saltburn (2023) and Wuthering Heights (2026). -
Kiera Sky Torpie
Writer/Director
Kiera Sky Torpie is a writer-director from New York whose work centers on intimate, female-driven stories with a darkly comedic tone.
While living in Los Angeles, she co-wrote, produced, and voice-acted in the animated sketch series, “Olive and Sunset,” which ran for two seasons on TikTok and Vimeo.
In 2022, her dark comedy, “Sunny Makes a Scene,” about a teenager confronting her father's overdose, premiered at the Festival Fringe in Edinburgh. In May 2024, she produced a reading of the play at the Irish Arts Center in New York City.
She is a recipient of the US-Ireland Alliance Scholarship and holds an MA in Creative Writing from Queen’s University Belfast. She currently lives in London after spending the last 18 months in Belfast developing BAFTA-winning writer/director Rich Peppiatt’s upcoming feature, Bad Bridgets.
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Molly Scotti
Producer
Molly Scotti is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker, cinematographer, and photographer. A 2022 graduate of Wesleyan University’s film program, her short film “The Christening” won multiple awards at the Hollywood Blood Horror Festival and the Pittsburgh Moving Picture Festival’s Thriller Picture Show. “The Christening” had its international premiere at Final Girls Berlin in 2023. Her most recent short, Let’s Eat Frank, is currently in post-production.
Molly’s work as a director of photography has been screened at South by Southwest, Filmfest München, New/Next Film Festival, and beyond.
In addition to her film work, Molly teaches classes at the documentary film community DCTV in Chinatown and is a regular volunteer at the nonprofit film school and community dark room Mono No Aware.
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Joey Massa
Intimacy Coordinator
Joey is an experienced intimacy coordinator for television, film, and theater. They started training with Theatrical Intimacy Education in 2019 and now serve as a Guiding Faculty member with the organization, where they develop and facilitate new workshops. Television credits include Law & Order: SVU (NBC), The Equalizer (CBS), Wu-Tang: An American Saga (Hulu), A League of Their Own (Amazon Studios), and Harlem (Amazon Studios). Their film work includes Plainclothes (Sundance 2025), Babes, Between the Temples, Tendaberry, and more. Joey has a strong background in sexual violence prevention and education as well as work surrounding supporting survivors of violence. They are a skilled facilitator and educator and have volunteered for over five years as a sexual assault and domestic violence crisis advocate in ERs across NYC. -
Elia Tzoukermann
Production Designer
Elia Tzoukermann is a multi-media artist, filmmaker, photographer, and doula based in Seattle. Her 2020short film, ‘The 5th Day of the Fourth Month in the Twentieth Year ‘premiered at the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival. In her work, she holds space for thresholds - birth, loss, and transformation - and approaches these experiences collaboratively with the people she supports. Analog photography is an extension of this practice, allowing her to witness these shifts while weaving my art and care work together. When she’s not capturing images, she’s designing farm to table dinner events at Landhaus in Seattle. 'Total Slip' is inspired by her true story.
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Mak Shealy
1st AD
Mak Shealy (she/they) is a director, writer, and actor originally from South Carolina, now based between Los Angeles and New York. Across film, theater, and prose, they tell stories about identity, belonging, and transformation, often through a blend of comedy, heart, and a touch of the surreal.
Drawn to characters in moments of transition, Mak is interested in the experiences that change us: the relationships we build, the losses we endure, and the unexpected ways we find ourselves again. Whether crafting intimate dramas, offbeat comedies, or genre-bending worlds, she creates stories that invite audiences to laugh, reflect, and feel seen.
Their current work includes the film jacob, side smirk, nose kiss (DWF:LA 2026), alongside two short films and a mockumentary in post-production. Her debut novel, Noodle Bug, is currently seeking publication.
Meet The Cast
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Olive Schettino
Olive Schettino as ALMA
Olive is a musician, actor, film and theatre-maker from New York. She holds a BFA in musical theatre performance from the Boston Conservatory.
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Kyle Chase
Kyle Chase as THEO
Kyle is a NYC-based actor, comedian, and digital content creator who has built a cult following for his @kylefornow and @veronikaiscool sketch videos and his many collaborations with director Michael Rees. Recent film credits include Guzzle Buddies and Recreational Social Interaction.
Your Help
TOTAL SLIP is a fiscally sponsored project of Cinematography for Actors, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Your donation will be tax-deductible!