While Girls State (Apple TV+) takes place in Missouri, the documentary most notably resides in a state of optimism–which is quite an accomplishment in an era marked by political divisiveness and vitriol.
Directed and produced by the Emmy-winning and DGA Award-nominated wife-and-husband team of Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, Girls State chronicles a group of some 500 Missouri high school students who gather for a weeklong program to delve into politics, democracy and pressing social issues as they build a government from the ground up to address the challenges which face us. All 50 states hold a Girls State program. For the documentary, McBaine and Moss gravitated to Missouri which has political stripes that span blue and red. Tapping into blue cities and red suburbs yielded a wide-ranging class of young women whose divergent views come into play with the election of a governor and attorney general, as well as the selection of Supreme Court justices.
The students are smart, thoughtful, have done their research, and demonstrate a willingness to engage in discussion and exchange ideas–and perhaps most notably, do so with civility and open-mindedness.
“We live in challenging political times, looking for ways to feel optimistic and hopeful,” observed Moss, noting that he and McBaine are parents of two teenage girls. Seeing first hand “how young women find their voices in a democracy,” related Moss, made him and McBaine feel hopeful. The young women the filmmakers spent time with were models of confidence, intelligence and caring, all the while respectful of others with different viewpoints. He described what he witnessed as “a new sound of politics,” representing a sorely needed departure from the toxicity evident in today’s local, state and national campaigns. This group of largely 17 year olds shows that civil discourse is possible, giving adults something to learn from and to try to live up to.
Perhaps the answer, related Moss, is that we have to wait for Gen Z to “grow up and take power in our system” in order to realize positive change in how issues of importance are discussed and addressed.
The alluded to Emmy win and DGA nomination–which came in 2021–were for Boys State, a documentary which followed a group of 1,000 teenage boys who participate in the weeklong Texas Boys State program, divided into two political parties as they seek to build their own system of government. The widely acclaimed Boys State set the bar high for Girls State. McBaine explained, though, that she and Moss contemplated a film about the Girls State program well before the release of Boys State in 2020. McBaine added that Girls State is not a sequel to Boys State but rather “a sibling” that tells its own story about young women who come together in St. Charles, Missouri, during the same week that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning a woman’s right to abortion leaked to the media.
Both Boys State and Girls State made auspicious debuts at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020 and 2024, respectively. In fact, Boys State won Sundance’s documentary Grand Jury Prize.
Asked about how they work together as producers and directors, whether they had a division of labor on Girls State, for example, McBaine noted, “Every film is a little different” but they always work in close collaboration. McBaine said that generally speaking she is deeply involved in writing and the post process, spending a lot of time with dailies, watching raw footage and culling from that what scenes will best reflect and serve the story. Meanwhile, she shared that Moss is “great in the field,” and is pivotal in the conception and inception of a project, like finding a tiny Washington Post article in 2017 about Boys State in Texas which for the first time in the history of the program was considering a vote as to whether the Lone Star State should secede from the U.S. From that, Moss and McBaine began a journey that brought the lauded Boys State documentary to fruition.
Moss said it’s been “extraordinary to be married to your creative partner.” He and McBaine love what they do and realize, he said, that “the two of us together can do things that we can’t do alone.”
Helping them immeasurably have been assorted collaborators. A prime example they cited was the support given by Oscar-winning (An Inconvenient Truth) documentarian Davis Guggenheim and his Concordia Studio. Guggenheim served as an exec producer on both Boys State and Girls State. McBaine cited the leap of faith that Guggenheim took on Boys State, helping to fund a totally verite film about a bunch of boy teens in Texas creating a fake government. Guggenheim, she affirmed, saw the value of the story and “leaned into it.” He became part of “a shared mission” of chronicling a young generation coming of age politically during particularly tumultuous times. “He [Guggenheim] had a respect for films we made before. Even with that,” said McBaine, “every verite film is a huge risk. We are forever indebted to Concordia to having that belief in us.”
Moss added that it’s “great to partner with director-driven companies and studios…with an artist at the top who has a sensibility that they share with you.” Moss described Guggenheim as a filmmaker who’s committed to “tell important stories in inventive ways.” Moss affirmed that having Guggenheim as “the wind in our sails,” a partner in the long journey, has been invaluable. Moss noted that Guggenheim gives them space when they need it, along with counsel when it is called for.
As for lessons learned from Boys State that they brought to Girls State, Moss said that the importance of casting loomed even larger. He and McBaine devoted more time to casting, had more resources, took more trips to Missouri, had more conversations with more people. And Moss and McBaine consciously brought more women onto their team. This was essential, he said, for a film about female representation as the documentarians had to earn the trust of the teen girls in the educational program. The filmmakers also allotted more time for the editing process with Moss sharing that a week of the Girls State program covered from varied aspects and perspectives necessitated a year to figure out the editing puzzle and do justice to the trajectory of the story.
Girls State also laid bare the inequity between Missouri's Girls State and Boys State programs, which were held for the first time concurrently and on the same campus–specifically Lindenwood University, in St. Charles, about 30 miles northeast of St. Louis.
Research by a Girls State gubernatorial candidate uncovered that Boys State had significantly more funding than Girls State. Boys State also received considerably more attention on other fronts, as evidenced for example by the swearing-in ceremonies of the gubernatorial election winners for Boys State and Girls State, respectively. The Boys State’s newly elected governor was sworn in by none other than Missouri Gov. Michael L. Parson. However, Gov. Parsons was not on hand to swear in the new governor of Girls State.
The Girls State program in Missouri receiving second class treatment as compared to its counterpart Boys State in this and other ways reflects, contended Moss, “the unconscious sexism that permeates our society.”
Girls State makes its streaming debut today (4/5) on Apple TV+.
The aforementioned award wins and nominations for Boys State are not the only accolades for Moss and McBaine. While the duo earned a DGA Award nomination for Boys State in 2021, Moss seven years earlier became a first-time DGA Award nominee on the strength of The Outsiders, a feature documentary which he and McBaine produced. Also in 2014, The Outsiders won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was also nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in the documentary category.
