We’ve all heard of a Little Treat - the rewards when you land the promotion, survive a hard day, or FINALLY made that call that your brain decided is the most anxiety invoking thing you’ve ever done. Over the last decade, besties Tessa and Avery have loved each other in small and ordinary ways: coffee runs, late-night phone calls, shared snacks, and girl dinners. 

As the two grow up and the world around them shifts, they’re left wondering:

This film is a warm, grounded drama with subtle dystopian undertones, rooted in mutual aid, chosen family, platonic intimacy, and the importance of a good snack. If you've ever frantically dug through your bag and come up empty — no tampon, no snack — and the person next to you offered you theirs, this film is for you. 

We want to tell a story about girlhood that isn't rooted in demoralizing clichés. We’re fed up with stories of women with no depth or agency, where every hardship is resolved by a man swooping in to solve it for us. No more tired, heteronormative tropes told at our expense: 

the funny fat friend, the "thirsty" best friend, the best friend turned lover, the manic pixie dream girl, the “I’m not like other girls” girl, the "big city b*tch" who falls for the small-town guy, and the girl who just hasn’t met “the one” yet.

In fact, there are SO many more female characters that lack their own story and dimension, or are killed by the third act, that Seth Julian Mlawski (fka Shana) and Carlos A. Hann Commander created an entire flowchart of common tropes. 

click to view larger image

Instead, we wanted a world that looks like the female friendships we've actually experienced. Our world is rooted in mutual aid and care without competition, where platonic intimacy matters just as much as its romantic or sexual counterparts, if not more so. 

It's a version of girlhood expansive enough to hold all of us. Girlhood, as we understand it, is a mindset as much as an identity: a way of moving through the world with kindness, inclusivity, and care at the center. It belongs to anyone who lives by that,  including (and especially) our femme, trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive besties who find refuge here. 

The truth is, the world is heavy right now, and it's only getting heavier and harder to hold onto our humanity by the minute. Everyone wants a village, as the saying goes, but no one wants to be a villager. We're in the middle of a "loneliness epidemic," and the ground beneath us keeps shifting: what used to be a difference of opinion over budgets and laws has become a debate over whether some of us deserve any rights at all. 

The world is growing more openly hostile, particularly toward women, femmes, LGBTQIA2S+ individuals, and People of Color. When your very existence is treated as something "up for debate", the small and ordinary ways we show up for each other become lifesaving. The acts of care like the ones at the heart of this film (coffee delivered, a few dollars sent when someone's short, a tampon passed under a stall door) begin to feel more and more necessary for survival.

In a moment defined by cruelty, surveillance, isolation, and burnout...making this film is both a much needed refuge and a chance to transmute pain into art.

The tone is intimate, grounded, lived-in, and a little sentimental with hints of activism. The humor reads like an inside joke: relational, occasionally meta, and never too precious. Much like life, this is a drama with funny characters, and the tone moves effortlessly between comfort and pain, humor and grief. This allows the audience to settle into Tessa and Avery’s world because it mirrors the familiar and messy greyness of their own.

Inspiration is pulled from works like Someone Great, Frances Ha, Sex Education, and Am I Ok? for their depiction of girlhood as well as the camera language of works by Joey Soloway & Jim Frohna (Transparent, I Love Dick, Afternoon Delight). 

Hiya, Kaitlyn (director) here! As a queer and female director making my directorial debut, it was important to me that our team be predominantly women and gender-expansive folks, both in front of the camera and behind it. The goal has always been to capture girlhood in all its forms, through an intersectional female gaze, so we can do this story justice on screen. 

left to right: Kaitlyn Elting, Rin Olsson, Kelly Fitzgerald, Sophia Marie

I can’t wait to continue developing the visual language with my DP, Kelly Fitzgerald, and deepening our understanding of Avery and Tessa alongside my brilliant actors, Rin Olsson and Sophia Marie. 

AVERY is poised, observant, and emotionally reserved, someone who has learned to survive by staying prepared, reliable, and in control. Dryly funny and deeply grounded, she finds comfort in routine and consistency. She’s never experienced unconditional love before meeting Tessa, who introduces her to self-compassion, chosen family, and the possibility of being cared for without having to “earn it”. Beneath Avery’s hard exterior is someone learning that community is not a threat to her independence or survival.

TESSA is warm, instinctive, and openhearted - the kind of person who makes mutual aid and community feel intuitive and not performative. She is generous in a way that feels natural and uncalculated, moving through the world with humor, softness, and a slightly “woo woo” belief in care, energy, and showing up for people. More outwardly expressive than Avery, she makes others feel welcome almost immediately, but her ease is hard-won. Having experienced deep grief herself, Tessa is determined to make sure no one, not even a stranger, feels alone. 

Though she never appears on-screen, AUNT MEL is the spiritual core of the film. Through stories and the legacy she leaves behind, she becomes the origin point of the “sweet treat” philosophy. She feels slightly mythic (but never abstract), warm, practical, and deeply woven into the lives of the women she has touched. 

JORDAN is perceptive, slightly guarded, and dryly funny. They understand exactly how the world works and have learned how to survive by flying under the radar and reading a room quickly. Even within compromised spaces, they find ways to preserve their humanity and extend care to others. 

MADDIE is young, cautious, and still learning how the world works. She carries herself with uncertainty and a deep hunger for connection, belonging, and guidance. Best friends with Riley, she's coming of age inside this f*cked up world as the next generation inheriting its rules and deciding what to do with them. Her brief encounter with Avery hints at a shift in consciousness: will she be the one to carry the tradition forward? 

RILEY enters in a moment of immediate, everyday need. Tough on the outside and a little frazzled, but able to access their own vulnerability when called for. Though we see them briefly,  they embody a larger life: someone thirsty for connection, purpose, and the sense that they matter to a world that tends to overlook them. They’re proof that care often happens in passing, between strangers, and through small gestures that meet basic needs with dignity.

KEVIN is entitled, aggrieved, quick to react; the kind of man who believes someone else's good fortune is a personal slight. He carries the confidence of someone the world has always centered, even as he insists he's the one under attack. He is less an individual villain and more the personification of toxic masculinity and "not all men". His presence reminds us how normalized these beliefs have become, and how easily they fuel an increasingly unsafe culture, particularly for women and femmes. 

Remember that quote from earlier about community? Here's your time to shine!

We are currently in our crowdfunding era, with production beginning in October!

Here's the thing though…we only receive funds from Seed & Spark if we reach at least 80% of our goal (about $4,020). Below that line, no funds are exchanged, so every pledge puts us that much closer to making this film a reality!

budget allocation subject to change based on production needs

If we exceed our goal, our stretch goals of approximately $7.5k, $8.7k, and $10.7k will make it possible to pay our crew (gratitude and returned favors sadly don’t pay the bills), reimburse kit fees, and host a proper premiere and festival run.

Sweet Treat is fiscally sponsored by the Alliance of Women Directors, so your donation is tax-deductible - yay!

A quick note on budget: the unfortunate reality of filming in LA is that nearly half our budget goes towards filming permits (at nearly the same rate + tier as bigger union projects with 300+ crew members), which are required for the psychological and legal safety of our crew. We would like to give a big thank you to Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, his team, and Stay in LA for their continued dedication to holding FilmLA accountable and advocating for legislation that makes LA the easiest, fastest, and most affordable place to film.

1. Contribute!

Pledge at any level, with human-made incentives beginning at $25. You can also use the "Loan" feature to contribute goods or services (like gear or location rentals, contract / legal consults, or catering/crafty) instead of pledging a monetary amount!

2. Follow Us!

It's 100% free, takes under a minute, and helps us unlock extra resources and partnership opportunities through the platform. Just click the blue "Follow" button on the top of this page.

You can also follow the film, cast, and crew over on Instagram: @SweetTreatTheFilm, @LightsCameraMaybe (director), @TechnicolorKelly.Fitzie (DP), @SophiaMarie.LA ("Tessa"), @RinOlsson ("Avery")

3. Help Us Make Connections!

We would be so grateful if you connected us with anyone you know who would be willing to donate / loan any of the items in our wishlist, or offer them to us at a discount.

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Growing up homeschooled, I never learned much about the kind of girlhood that Sweet Treat explores. Sisterhood, absolutely, but I didn't experience this kind of unconditional care until I was in college, when the friends who became my chosen family accepted my full self in all of its forms. It genuinely saved my life. With their unwavering support, I moved from my hometown of Portland, Oregon to LA to begin working in the film + TV industry and create my first film!

My belief is that the world changes for the better when kindness, platonic intimacy, and mutual care are treated as essential, not optional. This film is a love letter to the girlhood that saved me, while imagining a world where more of us know that small acts of resistance can start a ripple that leaves us ever so slightly more hopeful.

my best friends and I at graduation

We are only as strong as the women who came before us, who walk beside us, and who come after us. I'm forever grateful to the Women of Color and Queens, past and present, who modeled this kind of care long before #HashtagGirlDinner was trending.

I'm so happy you're here, and I hope you see yourself in this story of ours. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting not only my project, but independent filmmaking and art as a whole! 

xoxo, Kaitlyn