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<\/a><\/p>\nWhen my kids were 9 and 11, they set out a challenge for me as a mom and an artist: to make my next film one they would want to share with their friends. It felt like an exciting and worthwhile pursuit. I make documentaries, and none of my previous films were specifically intended for young audiences. However, I wanted the ideas within them about social issues, community, and self-invention to be accessible to kids and adults alike.<\/p>\n
My most recent documentary, \u201cCookie Queens<\/a>,\u201d began soon after my kids issued their challenge, when my producer told me a story about a young woman who got him to empty his wallet buying Girl Scout cookies. She complimented his looks and got his family\u2019s attention, and then suddenly her mom appeared from around the corner with a wagon full of cookies. Listening to him talk about his surprise at this young woman\u2019s savvy, I realized that the story of Girl Scout cookies could speak to people of all ages and operate on many levels. It had irresistible nostalgia and plucky kids. It could also examine the way girls and women are perceived, and see themselves, and how those two views are often not in sync.<\/p>\n What does it mean to age as a girl? What expectations and assumptions do people have of us? The cookies were a way into looking at girlhood and capitalism, and also into my own parallel experience, as a parent of ambitious kids, and as a woman-artist who has to sell my \u201ccookies,\u201d by which I mean get my work seen and funded.<\/p>\n I knew that the movie was going to show the ways kids learn about the economy and their place in it, and how the playing field isn\u2019t level. I thought that for audiences to see that through Girl Scout cookies might be less dry than seeing it through education or healthcare, or the other typical high-stakes ways we learn about inequity. The cookies would be honey on the razor\u2019s edge.<\/p>\n The first step was to find a group of Girl Scouts whose experiences could carry the larger themes of this story. I didn\u2019t care so much about how many cookies the girls had sold, except as an indicator of who was really passionate about this activity. Over hundreds of Zoom interviews, my casting director and I asked Girl Scouts about their \u201cwhys,\u201d taking into account their ages, where they lived, and their family dynamics and backgrounds to try to find a cross section of America today. Then, I visited nine families, spending a few days with them without a camera, before selecting seven girls to film. During the editing process, we settled on four main stories.<\/p>\n The four \u201ccookie queens\u201d the movie follows live in San Diego, El Paso, Los Angeles, and Charlotte. One has type 1 diabetes and often can\u2019t eat the cookies she\u2019s selling. Another is trying to sell enough cookies to go to Girl Scout camp, and her parents are worried about going into debt if they don\u2019t hit their goal. Another is trying to live up to her older sisters\u2019 legacy as they age out of Girl Scouts. The last is breaking her own sales records and questioning why her troop only gets $1 in profits off every $6 box.<\/p>\n From the beginning, I committed to shooting Cookie Queens entirely observationally. There aren\u2019t any interviews; it\u2019s all in the moment, present tense. I wanted to keep the audience in the girls\u2019 world. The bigger themes and social issues arise naturally, anchored in the girls\u2019 emotions and experiences as they live their lives.<\/p>\n One of the girls in the movie said recently in a press interview, when you love something a lot, you\u2019re going to be critical about it\u2014you want it to be better. She was talking about the Girl Scouts organization, and her advocacy to get more profits into the hands of troops. But I think it\u2019s true for my audiences, too. If you can care about the fact that it\u2019s not fair for Girl Scouts to only get $1 per box of cookies they sell, or that families risk going into debt to buy cookies in order to send their kids to Girl Scout camp, then you may also care about how American families commonly go into debt to pay for their children\u2019s healthcare, school, and other basic needs.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been going to screenings around the country with a lot of kids in the audience (including my own kids, who did invite their friends to the premiere\u2014mom mission accomplished!), and the conversations have been illuminating. Young people ask the Girl Scouts in the film about the pressures they face. They ask for the girls\u2019 advice on how to advocate for the change they want to see in the world.<\/p>\n There\u2019s value in young people enjoying themselves while watching longer format, nonfiction storytelling. They see themselves reflected onscreen and also get the chance to think about what it means to tell a real story, a true story. When watching a documentary, we sense how the camera isn\u2019t showing us everything, so of course there is not a single authoritative truth. We see that there are many authentic truths, and those are worth bearing witness to, thinking critically about, and discussing.<\/p>\n I hope some of the young viewers of \u201cCookie Queens\u201d will one day find ways to share their own stories. I look forward to taking my children and grandchildren to the movies to see them.<\/p>\n Alysa Nahmias<\/a> is a filmmaker and founder of AJNA Films<\/a>. Her directing credits include \u201cCookie Queens<\/a>,\u201d which recently premiered at Sundance and won the SXSW Festival Favorite Audience Award; the Emmy Award-winning \u201cArt & Krimes By Krimes<\/a>;\u201d and \u201cUnfinished Spaces<\/a>,\u201d which won a 2012 Film Independent Spirit Award and is in the MoMA collection.<\/p>\n \u00a0Z\u00f3calo Public Square<\/a> is an\u00a0ASU Media Enterprise<\/a>\u00a0publication.<\/p>\n