Amanda McBaine
Amanda McBaine (Director, Producer) is a Sundance Award-winning producer making her feature directing debut with Boys State. As a producer, her films include The Overnighters, The Bandit, Speedo and Ghosts of Attica. Along with her husband and creative partner Jesse Moss, she is a partner in Mile End Films, a San Francisco-based production company.
Boys State
The sensational winner of the Grand Jury Prize for documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival is a wildly entertaining and continually revealing immersion into a week-long annual program in which a thousand Texas high school seniors gather for an elaborate mock exercise: building their own state government.
Filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine closely track the escalating tensions that arise within a particularly riveting gubernatorial race, training their cameras on unforgettable teenagers like Ben, a Reagan-loving arch-conservative who brims with confidence despite personal setbacks, and Steven, a progressive-minded child of Mexican immigrants who stands by his convictions amidst the sea of red.
In the process, they have created a complex portrait of contemporary American masculinity, as well as a microcosm of our often dispiriting national political divisions that nevertheless manages to plant seeds of hope.
