4:26 pm PST 2/4/2021
in
Tyler Coates
Documentary filmmakers Moss and McBaine, along with protagonist Garza, discuss what the latter’s candidacy for the top job in the week-long political camp says about ‘childhood in America 2018’.
Filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss the duo’s acclaimed documentary Boys State on a THR Features questions and answers provided by Vision Media. Joining them was Steven Garza, one of the film’s 1,000 teenagers who attended the annual event at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Boys State program takes place over a week in all 50 states, with thousands of high school students participating in mock exercises to build representative state governments from the start. Garza himself was one of the teenagers who ran for governor – the highest position in Boys State – and the documentary Apple TV + follows his campaign, from his arrival to the final count of the votes.
“It’s definitely a force that bites a little on the heels,” said Garza of the cameras that followed him for a week. But he also said that his focus during Boys State was entirely on his campaign. “I’m trying to get the signatures to enter this vote, or I’m trying to write this speech, I’m trying to speak to the voters … and it’s like, oh, hey, there’s a camera over there,” he added. “But it really was just a factor [that] it did not influence me or anyone else to vote for something. “
“We have never made a film like this,” said Moss, who is used to following his documentary subjects over the years, instead of just a few weeks. The production team included 28 team members, with six acting as videographers to capture as many facets of Boys State as possible. “What we love about making improvised films [is] you never know where this is going, “Moss added. “What we never expected was for someone like Steven to emerge as a powerful political voice.”
Moss and McBaine also did not expect the chaos of filming hundreds of teenagers gathered in a turbulent mass that at times seemed lord of the flies – but it also proved to be part of the most exciting aspects of the project. “In retrospect, I should have recognized the incredible window that we would have,” said McBaine. “We started to get a sense of this kind of, What is childhood in America 2018? These children across the state were radically different and had radically different ideas about what it means to be a man. “
THR Current film screenings are provided by Vision Media; Additional questions and answers and other complementary content can be seen at THRnew public center of THRPresents.HollywoodReporter.com.