The Business
Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss on ‘Boys State’
Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss made their biggest documentary yet with “Boys State,” a process that required many leaps of faith, from securing funding to showing up at Sundance without a distributor.
By Kim Masters • • 28m Listen“Boys State,” a new documentary from directors Jesse Moss and Amanda mcbaine, focuses on more than 1000 rowdy Texas teenage boys who try to devise a functioning government.
This film was a departure for Moss and McBaine. They had made more intimate films in the past, but they shot “Boys State” with a whole crew of cinematographers.
The work paid off. “Boys State” set a record for the biggest documentary buy ever at the Sundance Film Festival — $12 million.
Moss and McBaine talk about the critical process of choosing the central characters in the film, the year they spent editing their reams of footage, and the bidding war that landed their film with Apple TV+ and A24.
