Interview With "Girls State" Directors Jesse Moss & Amanda McBaine

[00:00:00] You are listening to the Next Best Picture Podcast and this is Daniel Howard's interview with the directors for Girls State, Jesse Moss and Amanda McKay.

[00:00:11] Something in the air and politics.

[00:00:17] Girls State is like high school teenage girls who care about government.

[00:00:21] Are you friends? No, no. We'll become friends. Yeah, obviously.

[00:00:25] In 2040, I intend to run for president.

[00:00:29] So I think Girls State, I'm going to run for governor, attorney general, Supreme Court Justice.

[00:00:33] Jesse and Amanda, it's so great to chat with you guys again.

[00:00:36] Boys State was one of my absolute favorite films of 2020.

[00:00:41] And so as soon as I heard about Girls State, I was thrilled.

[00:00:44] So I'm excited to learn more about the movie and appreciate you guys' time today.

[00:00:47] Well, yeah, you don't see all that many sequels to documentaries, all things considered.

[00:00:53] Was your approach this time any different with this being a follow-up to an earlier film?

[00:00:59] Yeah, it was daunting to follow up Boys State.

[00:01:02] You know, so much worked perfectly with that film and so much you leave to chance in cinema verite.

[00:01:08] And we lucked out with exceptional characters, great story, really, I think touched a nerve with audiences.

[00:01:14] But we felt, even from the beginning of the project, that Girls State was part of the conversation that we wanted to have.

[00:01:21] We actually were talking to Girls State programs in Texas before we made Boys State.

[00:01:26] So we always knew this wasn't just about boys, it was about young people.

[00:01:31] And to leave girls out just didn't seem right. Plus we have two teenage daughters.

[00:01:35] So we think a lot about young women in this moment, how they're coming of age politically.

[00:01:39] And so it was really a matter of when and where and how to some extent, but not why.

[00:01:47] And we called the project a sibling, not a sequel.

[00:01:52] That was an important way for us to really distinguish the two.

[00:01:55] We weren't trying to follow up Boys State.

[00:01:58] We were making a companion that could be evaluated on its own merits and would share DNA, share parents, but would really be different.

[00:02:06] So that was a permission we needed to give ourselves to move forward.

[00:02:11] What were the learnings that you took from Boys State now that you had captured this experience before with the boys that you took into Girls State now that you had kind of experienced that process once before?

[00:02:25] There were some key learnings actually.

[00:02:28] So one of them, and we probably should have known this before going in, but one of the things we learned during and certainly as part of the edit of Boys State is how much the film Yes was about politics and political behavior.

[00:02:42] But it was also about boyhood and how much we could really, because these programs are old fashioned and gender segregated, there was in fact a really kind of fascinating portrait of what it meant to be a leader as a boy.

[00:02:57] And so we knew that going into Girls State and there was an extra layer we knew with girls because representation in politics is not equal and really kind of stuck at 25, 28% in Governorships, Congress, obviously no female president.

[00:03:14] There was an added piece of that that we knew was going to be there that I think we didn't really think through in the last, well certainly wasn't there for boys but also just a study in girlhood and what girlhood, what it means to be coming of age as a girl in this particular moment in politics.

[00:03:33] Right.

[00:03:34] So we knew that we also really learned how much time we needed to cast before the session got started because when it gets going it is, it is light speed fast and so we knew we needed to give ourselves as much time as possible to meet the kids we were going to really focus on and we did we had a healthy five months before June that year to find our people.

[00:03:59] Yeah, I want to hear more about that casting process and also how you settled on Missouri this time around it was in Texas with Boys State why Missouri.

[00:04:09] That's right we had to cast the state before we cast the kids and that was similar in that it was an audition process meeting a lot of states a lot of state programs there are girl states in every state except Hawaii that has a consolidated program and we were interested in the state of Missouri because they have a big robust vigorous program with a lot of girls.

[00:04:29] And democracy gets messier when you have more people involved so that was appealing. They have a Supreme Court which we loved. We didn't have that a boy state and we know the power of the court in our political life in our lives and so a lot of the young women we began to talk to in Missouri told us they were interested in

[00:04:50] serving on the Supreme Court at girl state that that was intriguing to us. So once we found the state also politically Missouri is interesting because it's not a battleground state, but it's emblematic of the country and its contradictions in some ways it has Josh Holly on the far right and it has Cory Bush say on the on the left and everything in between

[00:05:12] it has Kansas City in St. Louis these big vibrant cities but also rural communities and suburbs so it was interesting to us for those reasons and we knew the program would be drawing from all corners.

[00:05:25] Once we established the state and the partnership is so important you know inviting a 30 person crew into your program is a lot to ask and we had great buy-in they loved boy state they saw the potential of the film not everybody did and they took that leap of faith with us and then we got down to

[00:05:42] work as Amanda was saying in casting the film and searching across the state to find girls who frankly we were intimidated by the success we had a boy state and sort of we thought can we meet young women who surprise us as much we really love as much as these young men but of course as we started to get to know them we found them.

[00:06:06] Tell me about discovering some of these incredible girls and how difficult that process was.

[00:06:12] It's a long process the program was helpful in in sort of reaching out to everybody that was headed to the session and then of that group who was the folks who were interested in talking to us they connected with the program and then we reach out to them so we spoke on zoom over zoom zoom was available to us this time which is actually like the positive of zoom.

[00:06:30] So we spoke to hundreds and hundreds of kids and it's you know that in and of itself is really interesting work even if the kids aren't going to be part of the film just to really be connected to that that age group in this time and sort of talk about what's on their minds and who they are politically it's really fascinating to see how much they are not interested in being part of the the two party dynamic the binary and they haven't voted yet right there 17 so they haven't been forced to check a box and there's their politics very all a cart so a lot of

[00:07:00] these kids actually had different politics from their parents which was very cool to me I don't know how that happens right like where do you get your politics and why right so we had a lot of conversations but I will say that some of the characters that ended up in our film the minute Emily you know opened the minute my zoom box open and here's this just she started talking

[00:07:23] she started talking my it was like fire hose of information and she was so excited and so smart and so passionate and literally first thing she says I'm going to run for president I mean she has a website that says is like the tickers going down to the day that she's going to be old enough

[00:07:38] to run for president so you know you stand up and take notice of those kids they sort of cast themselves immediately but of course we were looking for a whole range of we needed people with different life experience coming from different places politically regionally so we did our work until we found sort of everybody that we felt the cast was there.

[00:07:59] And we're talking about the inequities of women in politics in America which of course you know yeah we knew we know that going in but what was so surprising about the film is the inequities in girls and boys state which I just didn't expect did you know that going in how how wildly different these programs are or did you discover that along the way just like we did to all of our listeners of the next best picture podcast.

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[00:09:35] well it's actually it's interesting you mentioned that we know about the inequities in the adult state and and I'm not sure we we do but I'm not sure we really think about them we just sort of accept them and I think we accept gradual change as inevitable

[00:09:51] and I think I speak for myself because I think the experience of making this film is confronting what is almost invisible and making it visible and it was actually startling just to research the photographs in the film of these women political officials in rooms full of men

[00:10:14] and you'd expect to find them 100 years ago but what's alarming is you find them today and I think to look at them in sort of collection with one another is to be reminded that there is positive change but it's pretty damn slow so I think we were very interested that girl state was running concurrently with

[00:10:35] boy state for the first time in their 80 year history on the same campus you know in Texas they're very separate and and in Missouri they were going to try this out and we love the idea that this is going to be a new experiment for them and we were also a little concerned that the boys presence might kind of overshadow our desire to really put the focus on the girls like we wanted to make sure this was a conversation about young women.

[00:10:59] So I think it was a kind of caution cautious curiosity about what would unfold and I think the great discovery of the story is that the girls begin to interrogate the boys program how they're treated differently, how they're funded differently and I think we begin to see that this is a structural inequality that is mirrored in our adult state and I think it counts for why young women don't have the same representation and the same opportunities so I say as a man

[00:11:29] who thinks of himself as enlightened and married to a strong woman who partner and has two daughters it's kind of shocking to discover that boy state has more money to run their program than girls say why is that fair.

[00:11:41] Well I know why it is historically I just don't know why it should be fair.

[00:11:45] I think I was surprised actually by the level of difference and every program is run a little bit differently in every state.

[00:11:53] So I'm sure there are boys state programs that are smaller than the one that we got to experience with Texas so that being said though what was striking to me is even the minute we rolled in in our cars, the counselors who were greeting these girls in a very camp counselor like optimism energy way they had pom poms and like they had

[00:12:14] bedazzlement and I was like whoa where are we like this what does this have to do with politics it's fun and it sure feels welcoming but it felt different of course than the Texas boys state also sort of the softball programming at least for the first three or four days was slow to get going and that was that was

[00:12:34] unexpected and and and we felt as filmmakers a little frustrated a little terrified to we're like oh no.

[00:12:41] Maybe this is the whole program and we're not going to have a film because they're never actually going to talk politics but they eventually get there but our frustration which you think feel in the film is certainly the kids frustration because they came in chomping at the bit ready to get into the meat and potato issues and like that's why they came so

[00:13:02] it was surprising but also like not surprising I was also like oh of course right the expectations are lower that is a familiar and disappointing it's feeling as a woman.

[00:13:13] I'm also fascinated. I think you said five months you had been casting this film before filming but then weeks before filming the dobs decision is leaked. You must have known how that would cast a shadow over over these the discussions throughout the film what was kind of your reaction thinking about the film.

[00:13:33] What was your reaction to how that might impact it before it happened.

[00:13:37] Well I think to answer that question first to step back to say what is interesting about this project for us is it explores this fault line that exists in American life and the question of whether people can reach across that line and find common ground and one of the issues that

[00:13:54] embodies that fault line in is abortion and we found that in Texas with the boys they talked about abortion but they were uncomfortable doing so even they those conservative boys realize that with no girls present it wasn't quite right they were sort of like mirroring the problem of the conversation in a way.

[00:14:12] And so we knew if we could get to Girl State and make this film that this probably would be you know an issue that was central to the week and indeed it became supercharged because that we knew the dobs decision had been heard.

[00:14:27] The opinion leaked just a matter of days before we got there and these environments are so interesting because they're really charged up they're like very sensitive instruments that receive all these signals in domestic life and concentrate them and here is this

[00:14:46] question of abortion and that we're all grappling with and suddenly it's like focused and we thought okay this is why we do this this is going to be really interesting and it was hard because as Amanda was talking about it was there was some tenetiveness to the conversation at first but then we began to see not only because the boys were beginning to talk about it

[00:15:06] but because the girls wanted to that it suddenly became central to the conversation and ultimately the Supreme Court that the girls form is going to hear an abortion case which as filmmakers who depend on a certain amount of luck and fortune we were like yes okay we're going to have an all female Supreme Court

[00:15:24] here this most important issue and argued for themselves that that that is exactly what we want to see.

[00:15:31] Well and in a state where there was a trigger law that you know once Roe v Wade was officially overturned it made abortion totally illegal in that state so that there was a particular level of stakes that you know kids and some kids were more aware of that than others I think that was also really interesting

[00:15:53] I'm not sure that all the kids really were fully understanding what it meant and also what the Roe v Wade case was really about legally and intellectually constitutionally and that became part of what was interesting I think for our film and certainly the Supreme Court case they argued it's a privacy case not a morality argument

[00:16:12] and that that starts to get really interesting when it's what's in an all all female conversation about law.

[00:16:19] I'm not sure I'm not sure I think there are a lot of adults who didn't understand what the implications of that decision would be and I think we're actually now wrestling with the consequences of that decision in ways even the court itself probably couldn't imagine so I think it has kind of unleashed a

[00:16:33] a pendor is box of complications that you know it seemed to kind of settle the matter but and so I think there's a poignant moment when Nisha is talking to these girls next to her they're about to hear the case and the girls are like oh it's not going to matter

[00:16:46] and she's like oh I think it is it's not going to matter in California what's going to matter right here with these poor girls you know they just don't realize it but I think there are a lot of adults who didn't realize it as well.

[00:16:57] Well the film is so incredibly compelling I wish we could talk more one final question before I let you go you filmed girl state in May of 2022 but you also finished up the mission last year another documentary that I just loved juggling multiple films at once how challenging is that I'm sure you've got multiple projects that that I don't even know about that you're juggling right now how do you keep each project straight working on multiple films at once.

[00:17:22] Well the beauty of those films at least that they were so different I think they could really occupy a very different part of and they were in different phases of their lives right they weren't both well they were both an edit for there was some moments I'm not going to lie some of those moments were a little dicey but I think it was kind of an interest I mean I don't know Jesse do you have anything.

[00:17:46] That was a particularly crunchy moment of like whoa. Yeah I mean I think it's you know we have a rest restless curiosity we also have gotten some opportunities postboy state that we want to capitalize on because we've been making films for a long time and there were times where we couldn't make movies we couldn't find support.

[00:18:05] I think it's important for us now to choose meaningfully and intentionally about what we devote our time to for those stories to really matter to us we hope they matter to other people to audiences because you know it's so much effort time heartache struggle to make any film good and so yeah last year was particularly intense I don't think we can sustain that level of productivity some directors seem to be able to I don't know how they do it we're not a big company we're just us and we have partners but.

[00:18:36] But it feels like an urgent times I think those divisions that motivated boy state are pronounced further and we want to make work that matters in the conversation that confronts these issues in you know surprising ways and tell compelling stories that also challenge us so I don't know we're going to keep making movies documentaries going through a weird transition but you know we've been through some weird transitions before since we started out in way back when I won't name the year because it'll make a sound old.

[00:19:02] But we're going to keep going so thanks Daniel appreciate talking to you and your support. Absolutely absolutely always a pleasure thank you guys again for girls and all your films I appreciate it. Thank you.

[00:19:14] Thank you so much for listening to dangle how it's interview with the directors for girl state Amanda McVan Jesse Moss here on the next best picture podcast girl state is now available to stream on Apple TV plus.

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[00:19:53] Thank you all so much for listening as always and we will see you all next time.

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