Apple Original Films announced Friday that a new documentary feature, “Girls State,” is on the way. The film is a follow-up to the acclaimed 2020 documentary “Boys State” and finds directors Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine returning to chronicle a weeklong program that tasks teenage girls with forming their own government.
Similar to “Boys State,” the new documentary follows 500 teenage girls from across Missouri as they gather for a week-long immersion in an elaborate laboratory of democracy, where they build a government from the ground up, campaign for office and form a Supreme Court to weigh the most divisive issues of the day. In “Girls State,” the country is now deeper into democratic crisis, with civil discourse and electoral politics increasingly fragile under ever more extreme political polarization. As questions of race and gender equality in a representational democracy reach a fever pitch, these young women confront the complicated paths women must navigate to build political power. Following a distinctly female perspective and filled with teenage insecurity, biting humor and a yearning for true friendship, the young leaders of “Girls State” win hearts and minds—not just elections.
“Girls State” is a Concordia Studio presentation of a Mile End Films production. Apple has not yet set a release date.
“In these turbulent times, we were inspired and moved by the young women we met at Missouri Girls State, and the stories that emerged in one, eventful week. ‘Girls State’ is very much a ‘sibling’ – singular and surprising but also related to ‘Boys State’ in its prescient portrait of young people coming of age in this political moment,” said Moss and McBaine in a statement.
Following its debut at Sundance, “Boys State” was broadly acclaimed, earning accolades including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special; two Critics Choice Documentary Award wins including Best Political Documentary; the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize; the SXSW Film Festival Louis Black/Lone Star Award; and a DGA Award nomination, among other honors. The film shocked many when it was notably snubbed from the Oscar nominations for Best Documentary Feature, given its acclaim.
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