June 24th 7:00pm
Dances With Films
Premiere of Slice
(Fusion shorts 3)
Slice : The Short Film
In a faded desert town, a roadside diner becomes the tense meeting ground for a young woman with a loaded past, a pair of desperate runaways, and a traveling preacher. As the clock ticks on and old wounds resurface, each character must confront the lies they’ve told—both to others and themselves. In the end, Slice is a story about the moments that define us—and the ones that undo us.
The History of Slice
Slice actually began as two separate short films—each originally developed as a proof of concept for its own TV series. But in 2021, while premiering our previous film, The Longest Day of the Year, at Dances With Films, we—directors Lauren Hoover and Siri Miller—met producers Eric Thompson and Josh Russell, who were there screening their own project, Stevie. They saw something in both of our stories and encouraged us to combine them into one shared world. That’s how Slice was born.
Much like the characters in the film—whose lives unexpectedly collide in the middle of nowhere—our own stories began to intertwine, both on and off screen. What started as two separate projects became a deeper exploration of connection, grief, and the invisible threads that tie people together. It evolved into something much bigger than we first imagined: a short film that also acts as a proof-of-concept for a larger, serialized world.
We raised funds from friends, family, and strangers, and together with our incredible cast and crew, shot the film over two grueling days in the desert. Now, Slice is alive—and we’re so excited to share it at the very festival that brought our production team together in the first place.
The Future of Slice
Slice serves as a proof-of-concept for something much larger: a grounded, character-driven series in the vein of True Detective meets The Leftovers, set in a world where time, space, and identity blur.
We believe this series couldn’t be more relevant than right now. In a world that feels increasingly fragmented, Slice asks what happens when the past refuses to stay in the past—and whether or not we’re destined to repeat the same stories, again and again. It’s about the places that shape us, the families we can’t seem to escape, and the haunting sense that some things are bigger than we’ll ever understand.
Our next step is to expand Slice into a full season arc, fleshing out the diner’s mythos, the cult’s origins, and the FBI’s deeper investigation into other unexplained places like Slice across the country. We already have a pilot script, pitch materials, character breakdowns, and a detailed series bible in progress, and are actively pursuing industry partnerships, writer room collaborators, and production companies who share our vision for serialized, elevated genre storytelling with heart.
With the proof of concept complete, we’re ready to move forward with securing development funding, finding the right producing partners, and pitching Slice as a premium television series. We believe the world we’ve built is expansive, timely, and built for a long life on screen. We’re ready to take the next step—and we hope you’ll come with us.
Slice : The Series
In the middle of the desert sits Slice Diner—a faded, dust-covered pit stop on a dying stretch of Route 62. For decades, locals have whispered about the tragedies that happen there—disappearances, strange phenomena, lives shattered overnight. Most just keep on driving. But for Judy, Slice has always been home.
Now middle-aged, Judy runs the diner while caring for her mother, Mary-Louise, who’s wasting away in a memory care facility, slipping deeper into what doctors call dementia. But something about it doesn’t sit right. Judy feels it in her body—in her bones—like the air around her has never quite belonged to her. Like she’s never quite belonged to it.
When a series of ritualistic murders leads FBI Agent Sylvie Howards to Slice, Judy is pulled into the investigation. Together, Judy and Howards begin to unravel the diner’s bloody past—the hostage standoff Judy survived as a child, the cult that worshiped the land, and the stories locals tell about the ground beneath their feet being cursed. But as the case deepens, the lines between past and present start to blur, and both women begin to suspect the impossible: Mary-Louise isn’t losing her mind—she’s slipping through time itself.
What they uncover is bigger than the diner, bigger than anything they could have imagined: Slice is a doorway, sitting on a portal where realities fold in on themselves, pulling the same people, the same tragedies, back again and again. Judy and her mother don’t just feel out of place… they are. Neither of them were ever meant to be in this world at all.
As the walls between dimensions begin to collapse, Judy faces an impossible choice—hold the door shut, or step through and risk losing herself forever.
