“Girls State,” a film that follows a group of Missouri high school girls as they build a government from the ground up, is this year’s Show Me True/False title for the ongoing True/False Film Fest.
The film will show at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Fest, with its co-directors, Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, holding an extended in-person Q&A at Jesse Auditorium at the University of Missouri after the screening. The film will show again at 12:30 p.m. Sunday at the Missouri Theatre.
The film, which takes place at Lindenwood University in the St. Louis suburbs, follows the directors’ prior documentary, “Boys State,” with both films breaking down the electoral process at the Girls State and Boys State events. The films follow the campaign of governor candidates and their goals when trying to win a general election.
“One of the joys of making the film … we get to see what works and what doesn’t work,” Moss said. “What are the messages that work? And I think it relates to how politics work, the bigger picture and what we see in presidential campaigns.”
Moss said Girls State and Boys State programs “help us understand what our political future is through the eyes of young people.” Girls State and Boys State are immersive leadership programs for high schoolers that focus on the mechanics of American government where participants organize a mock government.
“Civil discourse is one of the core values of the program Girls State and Boys State, and I think it’s a question we’re asking ourselves: Is it even possible for adults, for young people to have civil discourse across their political differences?”
The film sees friendships being formed across party lines. The directors emphasized that these are not naive kids; they’re very sophisticated.
“(They show us) that this young generation is doing something differently than this older generation,” Moss said. “These young women, they are civil … their compacity to open themselves up to people with different perspectives.”
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Both films allowed directors to connect with kids who are passionate about government, McBaine said.
“At 17 … having them learn by doing, by creating this fake government themselves, really understand the mechanics of it, and also their capability within that system that then translates into becoming 18 and getting the right to vote,” McBaine said.
Since both the Boys and Girls State programs happened simultaneously, disparities in the treatment of cohorts and issues of gender equality arose.
“We noticed in filming ‘Girls State’ every program is run differently, but it was a startling first couple of days at Girls State … there was no politics, it seemed, and we are following kids who are very passionate about certain issues, certain policy issues, and they wanted to get into it,” McBaine said.
“The film provokes questions about disparities,” Moss said. “One of the big underlying questions of the film, too, is why are women not more equally represented in positions of political leadership in our country?”
These are questions girls in the film are asking.
“I think we see some answers in the film, and we see women who are determined to break that glass ceiling,” Moss said.
You can purchase tickets for True/False online, at the box office and in line.