The young stars of ‘Cookie Queens’ share what makes girls great leaders as director Alysa Nahmias reflects on the biggest lesson she learned from following them
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NEED TO KNOW
- Cookie Queens director Alysa Nahmias shares the biggest lesson she learned from following four Girl Scouts
- The young stars of Cookie Queens reveal to PEOPLE why they believe girls make exceptional leaders — and their answers go far beyond selling cookies
- Executive produced by Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, Cookie Queens hits theaters Aug. 7 after its acclaimed Sundance premiere
The stars of Cookie Queens may spend much of the documentary selling cookies, but they’re also tackling something much bigger: learning how to be leaders.
Ahead of the film’s Aug. 7 theatrical release following its Sundance Film Festival premiere in January, director Alysa Nahmias tells PEOPLE that following four Girl Scouts — Olive, 12, Nikki, 9, Shannon Elizabeth, 8, and Ara, 5 — through cookie season left her with one lasting takeaway.
“I’ve learned it’s okay for girls to be both little girls and little adults,” Nahmias tells PEOPLE exclusively. “It’s okay to take them really seriously and also be really tender and nurturing and let them be little still.”
Nahmias says making the documentary, which counts Meghan Markle and Prince Harry among its executive producers, alongside the girls — and raising a daughter around the same age — changed how she thinks about girlhood.
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“With Cookie Queens, I tried to show how you they are wiser than their years, and also to show that sometimes they are innocent and ask questions about the world and want to know how it works in ways that are completely normal for their age — and for anyone,” she says. “Those are good questions that we should still ask, like, ‘How much is enough?’ and ‘What is fair?’ That’s something I really take to heart. Listen to kids. Take them seriously.”
That philosophy carries through Cookie Queens, which follows the foursome as they navigate the pressures of Girl Scout cookie season while wrestling with bigger questions about confidence, ambition and self-worth.
“It’s about finding healthy outlets to talk about the pressures that are on us as girls and women,” Nahmias continues. “My interest was not really in the cookies—as delicious as they can be— as much as the internal journeys they were on.”
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When PEOPLE asked the girls themselves why they think girls make good leaders, each offered an answer beyond her years.
Nikki pointed to perseverance. “Girls can make good leaders because they have passion and they’re strong and they won’t give up,” she says. “They’re ready to do stuff — we’re prepared.”
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Olive connected leadership to history. “Compared to men, we have not had it easy,” she says. “We have had to fight for lots of rights.”
She adds that women have developed “that endurance and that motivation.”
“We’re not used to sitting back and having things handed to us,” she continues. “We know what we have to do in order to make things happen.”
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Shannon Elizabeth emphasized empathy. “I think women make good leaders because they know how to love — they know how to love people,” she says. “Even if they don’t know them.”
“I know only the couple of Girl Scouts in my troop, but I would love all the other Girl Scouts just as much as I love them,” she continues. “We know how to spread our love equally. Even if we don’t know them, we know how to respect and love them.”
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For Nahmias, those thoughtful answers are exactly why she wanted to make the film in the first place.
Whether audiences come for the cookies or the competition, she hopes they’ll leave with a new appreciation for the girls behind the booths.
“I’m really excited for audiences to see this film. It really is for everyone. I think whether it’s Girl Scouts or soccer or hockey or piano — whatever your thing is — you’re going to see your experience reflected,” she says. “These girls are as hilarious and smart as they are wise.”
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