Aspiring filmmaker and CU Boulder senior Francesca Hiatt’s short film, Cherry Yogurt, relies on subtlety to touch on grief and support, viewed through children’s eyes

Sitting alone on a wooden pew in a quiet church, a 7-year-old boy stirs cherry yogurt in a cup with his spoon. He seems distraught.

Entering the ornate church, a young girl approaches the boy. She asks if he has been crying. He tells her he has a headache, and he points to a pill mixed in the yogurt that he says is for the pain.

Nearby, behind closed doors, adult voices murmur. At one point, a woman can be heard crying softly.

 

Francesca Hiatt, a CU Boulder film major, received an Office of Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (PACES) Tier 1 micro grant to make her short film, Cherry Yogurt, which began as an assignment in a screenwriting class.

The scene marks the opening of Cherry Yogurt, a short film written, directed and produced by Francesca Hiatt, a University of Colorado Boulder film major. With her short film, Hiatt didn’t set out to create a neatly packaged story. Instead, in just less than seven minutes, she constructed what might be considered an emotional memory, loosely defined and quietly observed.

The idea: kids watching the world

Hiatt began Cherry Yogurt as a script for a screenwriting class in November. However, the kernel of the idea had been forming long before that.

“I like to write films about adult themes put into children’s perspective,” she says. “I work with kids a lot, and I’m the oldest sibling of four. Just seeing what adult scenarios look like through their eyes always intrigued me, so that’s typically what I write about.”

That approach became the foundation for Cherry Yogurt. In the film, the adult world remains mostly off-screen. It’s hinted at—through murmured conversations off camera. The children in the film aren’t unaware, but they don’t fully comprehend, either. That gap in understanding is central to the short film, Hiatt says.

“Subtlety is really important in this piece. Any time you’re writing from the personal perspective of children, you paint the world how they view it,” she explains.

One thing that is clear to the boy and girl is how slowed down time feels as they wait for the adults to emerge from behind closed doors, as children and adults experience time differently, Hiatt notes.

“Maybe it’s only an hour long, but if you’re a child kept waiting it feels like it’s four hours long,” she says.

Making the film was a family affair

As intimate as the short film’s story is, the production of Cherry Yogurt was even more so. Hiatt cast her younger brother, Victor, in the lead role. Her mother, an actress, also played a part, as did her father, despite not being an actor.

“My whole family are actors. My dad is not an actor—but I made him do it anyway,” she says with a laugh. “It was a family effort for sure.”

In that respect, making the short film felt very familiar, as Hiatt previously directed her siblings in several short homemade movies.

“Back in the COVID days, I was making movies with my siblings in our basement. Honestly, they were not great, but they were very funny to me and I learned a lot from making them,” she says. Later, at CU Boulder, Hiatt participated in a number of student filmmaking projects, some of which she had a supporting role in and some that she spearheaded.

“I had previously done a couple of other films at CU Boulder, but Cherry Yogurt was the first film that I made from inception and writing the script all of the way to completion,” she says.

Filming took place over one hectic day, following a prep day that involved doing camera tests for lighting at the ornate Denver church. “It was insane. We only had eight hours to shoot because of a time limit on making use of the location, so we had to just get one solid take and move on,” Hiatt explains.

Despite the rush, Hiatt says the results were effective. She credits her cast—especially the two child actors—for bringing an authentic spirit to the film.

 

Student filmmaker Francesca Hiatt cast her younger brother, Victor (seated, wearing red hoodie), in the lead role of her short film Cherry Yogurt, which she filmed in one hectic day at a Denver church. (Photo: Francesca Hiatt)

“Flubbing a line is a totally different universe when they’re 7 years old and just laughing,” she says, explaining that laughter and innocence are exactly the point.

The crew and the gear came together

While the film’s cast was largely made up of family members, the crew came from Hiatt’s close circle of collaborators at CU Boulder.

“It’s a group of four of us,” she says, referring to her fellow film students. “We’ve worked on every single one of each other’s films since the first day.”

Hiatt also tapped into Denver’s professional film community, recruiting a professional director of photography with whom she had previously worked. In turn, he brought a few seasoned crew members to elevate the film’s production value, she says.

All of this was made possible by a CU Boulder Office of Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (PACES) Tier 1 micro grant for $2,000. The funding was awarded to Hiatt’s Action! Film Club, which she created to provide middle school students opportunities to be part of film projects.

“The grant was huge,” Hiatt says. “I honestly don’t think the film would have been made without it.”

The PACES funding covered the location fee, catering for a 20-person shoot and, crucially, a rented gimbal—a stabilizing camera rig that made handheld shots smoother and more professional looking. The grant funding also paid for all of the costumes and props.

The cherry yogurt of it all

The film’s title, Cherry Yogurt, seems whimsical—almost trivial—at first glance. That, too, was intentional.

“It was something youthful and it was a symbolic item throughout the film,” Hiatt says. “You hear ‘cherry yogurt’ and you think of something bright, but it doesn’t hint at how heavy the other parts of the theme are.”

 

Francesca Hiatt credits her cast—especially the two child actors (above, in a scene from the film)—for bringing an authentic spirit to the film. (Photo: Francesca Hiatt)

Some scenes leave questions unanswered. Is the boy distraught solely because of a headache or are there other reasons? Is the pill in the yogurt simply intended for pain relief or possibly for something else? In a later scene, the girl, wearing several friendship bracelets, gives one to the boy, saying they offer protection. But protection from what, exactly?

Hiatt kept those elements intentionally ambiguous.

As for what the adults are meeting about behind closed doors, Hiatt says she originally specified in the script that they were attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. In the final version of the film, the nature of the meeting is left unspecified, but Hiatt says it is made clear through the hushed tones of the adults that it’s something serious.

Post-production offers time for reflection

Final editing of the film wrapped in August, more than a year after Hiatt first wrote the script.

“It’s crazy how long it takes to make even a short film,” she says. “After finding the (PACES) grant funding, I started all of the pre-production work, which includes establishing the timelines, location scouting, producer work, getting a crew together and securing the cast. It takes a lot of planning and a lot of work getting people to respond, and I was doing all of this on top of being a full-time student and working full-time, so it was definitely a big project.”

Even during post-production, Hiatt says she kept learning.

“I look back and think, ‘Wow, I  already know so much more now than when I shot this,’” she says. “I’m lucky to have opportunities to learn quickly and it’s hard for my art to keep up with how much I learn—even on a daily basis.”

Hiatt recently screened Cherry Yogurt for cast and crew members. Meanwhile, she has submitted the short to a handful of film festivals in hopes of attracting a larger audience for the production. The short film can be viewed here.

Exit, stage left

Hiatt is graduating a year early and will walk with the class of 2026 in May. She has worked with several Denver and Boulder film production companies already and sees herself continuing freelance video work while aiming for her long-term goal: destination Los Angeles.

However, Hollywood is just one possible path to what is most important to Hiatt:  “The big goal for me is to get a job that I’m passionate about—something that makes me happy, drives me creatively and where I can make money. Something that makes me excited to go to work every day.”

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