VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Directors Jesse Moss & Amanda McBain Explain The Meaning Behind Their Documentary ‘Girls State’

Directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBain sat down to deep-dive into the political meaning of their new documentary Girls State in their new uInterview.

A follow-up to Moss and McBain’s Boys State, a documentary about an experiment in which 1,100 teenage boys from Texas came together to build a representative government, Girls State features 500 teenage girls as they work to build a democracy together. The film follows a diverse team of young female leaders from a vast variety of backgrounds as they construct a government from the ground up.

Moss explained what drove them to produce a sequel to their 2020 film. “[We] call Girls State a sibling to Boys State, not a sequel, which was a little bit of a way to give ourselves permission to make the film,” he told uInterview founder Erik Meers. “Boys State worked out so well, but we felt like there was unfinished business. We’re the parents of two teenage girls. We think a lot about teenage girls in this political moment, so we decided to leave Texas, go to Missouri, and really let the film become its own story and not try to impose some kind of artificial structure on it. It’s a different kind of story I think.”

McBain reflected on her experience watching the women work together. “What I found inspiring about these young women is that they are realists. They’re optimists. They’re politically engaged. They love America. They want to make it better. They want there to be more female representation in government on its highest levels and they’re game to do that. I found that inspiring, the level of energy and determination. I did also see in Girls State, the challenges that girls face beyond institutional problematic challenges. They were internal.”

McBain added, “And I know this from parenting teenage girls, there’s a level of perfectionism, and girls are hard on themselves in a way that boys are not. That was a very stark difference from what we’d seen in Boys State. Yet a lot of it is very similar to Boys State.”

Moss expanded on the female take on the documentary, “I think it mirrors the inequalities in our society and explains why there are not more women in higher political office. These young women, they don’t hold back, they are not shy, and I love that they call out these differences in the program…here they were showing us what the story was that was hiding in plain sight.”

Girls State can be streamed now on Apple TV+.