What do these four characters have in common: an exiled architect, an imprisoned mural artist, an educator ahead of his time and a Girl Scout under Girl Scouts of the USA?
If you guessed that they can all be classified as “individuals in institutions,” you’d be correct. Another commonality is that they’re each subjects of director Alysa Nahmias, the soon-to-be-a-household-name director of “Cookie Queens,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
Hours before the film’s SFFilm premiere, The Daily Californian sat down with Nahmias to chat about mastering upselling before mastering your Rs.
Every January to April, 1 million salt-of-the-earth Americans don their sashes to generate $800 million for Girl Scouts of the USA. Ara, Shannon Elizabeth, Nikki and Olive are just four contributing to the pot, each with their own varying cookie-selling goals. Of course, the nonfiction narrative that “Cookie Queens” spins depends on the active pursuit of these monetary goals, but Nahmias’ flawless casting and direction turns each girl’s target number into a proxy for something greater. Sure, Shannon Elizabeth wants to sell 2,750 boxes of Thin Mints, Tagalongs and Samoas, but what does she really want?
“With each of their stories I wanted to have an outer journey of ‘Will they sell this or will they not?’” Nahmias elaborated. “All of that is fine, but really, it’s ‘will you be able to belong to your sisterhood?’”
In the case of Shannon Elizabeth, selling 2,750 boxes is the only way her parents could afford to send her to Girl Scout camp. Nahmias’ documentation of the family’s progressive dispositional shift as the season’s end creeps closer is deft. Living where few can afford the luxury of a $6 box of Girl Scout Cookies means little to show for the afternoons Shannon Elizabeth spends selling. Watching her parents go from nervously optimistic to reckoning with the truth that Girl Scout camp is an impossibility is devastating.
Five-year-old Ara’s goal is a little less flashy — 55.
“For Ara, it was a little bit about learning the rules of the game,” Nahmias explained. “Can she master this new thing? She’s trying a new thing (in an) age group all about developmental independence and mastery.”
Watching Ara, it’s easy to see that she’s grappling not with a social challenge of selling enough Girl Scout cookies, but with the weight of a challenge, period.
“Things I was looking for (in casting) — they had to be passionate about cookie sales, but it didn’t have to be a big number,” Nahmias said. “That’s how we found someone like Ara. Her goal is not a huge number on paper; if it was a reality competition show, they probably would have thrown her out. But for me, her last year’s goal was five, and this time it’s 55? That’s 11 times more.”
Similarly ambitious is 12-year-old Olive, who holds North Carolina’s state record of 12,801 boxes sold in a single season.
“With Olive too, we were looking at this story — which I deeply relate to — of perfectionism,” Nahmias divulged. “How do we know when it’s enough? What if we have more capacity? Should we push ourselves? Who’s pushing us — is it ourselves or is it the world? And she says, maybe it’s both.”
And hence, “individuals in institutions.” Considering the film’s happy-go-lucky title and the poster’s Barbie-pink boulevard, it may be tough to imagine “Cookie Queens” as anything other than frictionless, but Nahmias’ depiction remains a critical endorsement.
“Some institutions are heavier or even dark, like the carceral system in the United States or Cuba in the 1960s, but Girl Scouts is also an institution,” Nahmias said. “I’m looking at that dark sort of dynamic, but through the lens of childhood, which I think gives it a kind of lightness that’s wonderful.”
“Cookie Queens” is absolutely pro-Girl Scouts, but that doesn’t mean it necessarily has to be pro-Girl Scouts of the USA. Each box of Girl Scout Cookies is $6. Just one of those dollars goes to the scout who sold it; the rest goes right back to “big Girl Scout” — Girl Scouts of the USA. Throughout the film, each girl bears this weight in one way or another, and some even choose to push back. Presenting such adult themes through the unserious lens of a cookie seems entirely non-intuitive, but those themes were only present because the girls wanted them to be.
“I wanted to let the girls be as funny and silly (as they wanted) and let the cookiness of it all be there, but also to let the challenges and the pressures and the ways that they’re learning about the economy and their value inform the whole way through,” Nahmias detailed.
By allowing the girls to take the lead, “Cookie Queens” is, in fact, fundamentally intuitive and the feel-good movie of the year. If you see one movie in all of 2026, let it be this one.
“Cookie Queens” opens in theaters Friday.