'Cookie Queens' Doc: 4 Girls Scouts & the Power of Selling

Did you know that Girl Scout cookies are an $800 million business? In this episode, host Sandra Abrams chats with Alysa Nahmias, the writer and director of "COOKIE QUEENS," a new documentary releasing on August 7 all about the pressure of selling the iconic cookies. The doc, which is winner of the SXSW 2026 Audience Award, spotlights four young Girl Scouts, ages five to 12. It follows Ara, Nikki, Shannon Elizabeth, and Olive, through their highs and lows during the Girl Scout cookie selling season - all while still navigating life and pre-teen fun.

In their conversation, Alysa shares how the concept came to life after her children gave her a directive to make a film they wanted to see and how she went from wearing the "Mom" hat to the "Director" hat. She also explains the process of casting these four charming and ambitious girls, how the Duke and Duchess of Sussex of Archewell Productions joined the project, and the role of Roadside Attractions, an independent film distributor, in getting the film into over 500 theaters.

Learn more and find tickets: https://www.cookiequeensfilm.com/

Watch the Cookie Queens trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnSQS43Eil8

Transcript

Speaker 1:
Welcome to Media Makers Spotlight from Women in Film and Video in Washington, D.C. We bring you conversations with industry professionals for behind the screens, insight and inspiration.

Speaker 2:
Welcome to the Women in Film and Video's podcast, Media Makers Spotlight. I'm your host, Sandra Abrams, and in this episode, I'm talking to the writer-director, Alyssa Namias. We're going to talk about her new film, Cookie Queens.
It's going to be released by Roadside Attractions on August 7th in well over 500 theaters, so you'll have a good amount of places to go to go see it. And it talks about these four girls who are on their quest to sell a lot of cookies and win some prizes. And along the way, we learn about them, how they set goals, they build confidence and resiliency and learn about financial issues as well.
So thank you for joining us and congratulations on the film.

Speaker 3:
Thank you so much, Sandra. I love being here and especially in this context of women and film and media and this story being about, you know, young girls who have these really ambitious spirits. So it feels like, you know, I'm just excited to talk with you about the film. Thank you.

Speaker 2:
Well, the film, you have these four girls. You have Olive. You have Shannon and Elizabeth.
You have Nikki. And then you have Aura. And you pick these girls for their passion.
You know, they're in different parts of the country. There's different ages and they have different goals. But it sounds like it's a very daunting task to have these four girls.
What was the timing like for you to cast these four girls?

Speaker 3:
Yeah. So I always knew from the beginning with Cookie Queens that I wanted to find kids who were very passionate about selling Girl Scout cookies because the film was obviously about Girl Scout cookies and selling them. But also more importantly for me about the inner journeys and the coming of age stories.
And like you were saying, the realizations and learnings that kids have when they are so passionate about something. And so I was looking for kids. I knew that I wanted kids who were, yeah, who were super enthusiastic about Girl Scouts, who sold the cookies on their own. I wasn't interested in like parents doing it for them.
Although I was interested in that dynamic of, you know, as a parent myself, and as a girl who was ambitious, and still is in a lot of ways, I wanted to capture that dynamic of like, where does our motivation come from? Is it intrinsic? Or is it external pressure? And how does that combination work? So I looked for kids that had those kinds of stories, and did a really awesome casting process, reached out very grassroots. This is an independent film, completely independently financed and produced by myself and my team. And we posted in moms groups, in Girl Scout groups on Facebook, all of that, and got a ton of response of interested families.
And then I was able to do Zooms with dozens of them and visit in person. I think almost 10 families I went and visited and spent a few days just to really understand their lives and their communities without filming. And then ultimately ended up filming with seven kids, four of which are featured in the film. And I think what is one of the things that's interesting about not just each of these girls has their own amazing story, but the way they work together to create a whole that's greater than the sum of the parts where we can see them reflected in each other. Like, oh, maybe Olive was like Aro when she was younger, or maybe Nikki will be like, you know, Olive when she's older. So that was something that was really fascinating to me to think about how much

Speaker 2:
transformation and growth takes place from age five to 15. There is a lot of change that goes on. And especially when I think about Olive, and she has that financial epiphany about what goes on with, oh, you're only getting 10% or 15%. And that actually becomes part of the arc of her story.
You don't even know that's going to happen. And that's what I thought was the genius of your film, because different things are happening. And, and you're not, you don't know that it's going to

Speaker 3:
happen. Thanks. And I think that, you know, with documentary, I love that, that we I filmed it all observationally. So there are no interviews in this film, you're with the kids, I wanted it to play. And I think it does play like a movie, you know, and, and it's very in the moment, very present tense, very emotionally driven and visually driven with the storytelling. And I feel like, you know, with the economic storyline, I was interested in that from the beginning. I was interested in how do girls and women learn our value and our place in the economy for better or worse? How do we get conditioned? How young do we learn that, for example, cuteness sells?

Speaker 2:
And what does that mean in our culture? Nikki had that with her sisters. At first, they were like, oh, you're the little sister, stay out of our room. And then, you know, suddenly she becomes the main part of that family selling right there. Totally. And the economy is,

Speaker 3:
is, is in some ways, like a game, it's constructed. And I don't mean to trivialize how serious, you know, economic and financial stakes are for people. They are, they're very real. And at the same time, it's we learn about how money works and the rules of it and what and these kids are asking very early, what's fair? What is fair? How do we value labor versus ownership of a company?
And those are things that we still ask, I still ask in my industry as a professional. And so they are professionals. In fact, at first I thought, oh, we might be filming girls rehearsing how to do business. But no, they're actually part of an $800 million business. Girl Scout cookies outsell Oreos, Chips Ahoy annually. And these girls are doing professional work that makes big money.

Speaker 2:
Well, speaking of these girls, what about your own kids? Because you talked about how this film came about when we were at the DC Docks and you were doing the Q&A with Nell Minow. And you talked about how you made these serious, serious films and the kids were like, well, can't you make something for us. And then one of the producers had this heart charging and sales situation where he ended up buying lots of cookies. So now you're making the film, you take off your mom hat, you've got to put on the director hat. How much pressure did you feel, you know, with your kids saying, they've given you this mandate, you know, mom, make a film we can see.

Speaker 3:
Yes. So it was this kind of double dare to make my next project something that they would actually want to share with their friends. Right. Um, but also for me, it was like, well, how do I do that and keep it, um, have a debt, the kind of depth and, and, uh, thematic resonance that I, that's meaningful to me as an artist and visually keep it interesting. And you said like, take off my mom hat and put on my director hat. And it's those that have actually been hats that I've worn concurrently for my whole career. So my daughter's 15 now, by the way, it did pass the test. They Oh, yeah. We're bringing friends to theaters. It's happening. So mom passed that test.
But I wanted to say that, you know, my daughter was six weeks old when my first film premiered 15 years ago. And my son is now 12. And I've just been making movies as a mom.
And there's a quote that I love by this visual artist who said, being a mom and being an artist makes you very lean and very lucid as an artist. You know, you have very, you're always, your time is a little more limited sometimes, but your lucidity, your clarity about what's important in the world, like your mission can be very, very strong and very clear. So I feel that.
And I think my kids have given me that. And ironically, this film took me away from my own family because it was an arduous shoot. We did, these girls go hard and we were filming with seven families with the same crew.
So my cinematographer, Antonio Cisneros, my producer, Jen Sims, and my sound person, my camera, my AC, the five of us traveled everywhere. And it was six months of basically touring and being very present with these other families. And they extended the cookie season on top.
And then they extended the cookie season. Exactly. But what I got out of it, too, was this vision of, you know, it's so rare that we really get to know other families on the inside.
We know our own families. You know, we have to. Sometimes we get really close with another family, but the level of access and intimacy that these families offered our crew and that we all developed together is a lifelong bond.
And we were in like the girls talk about how, you know, they just got felt like we were family and it felt like the camera was just part of their daily lives. And I still talk to them almost every day. So it's like it's really special.
And I hope that comes through on screen. I think that's part of what people feel is that we spent at least as much time off camera as we did on.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. The parents were so important to, you know, the emotional depth of this film. And I just think back, you know, Olive has had that serious conversation with her mom or when she was pulling the wagon.
And that customer said, well, I'll come back, dear. You know, the father, you know, didn't want to disavow her of anything, but let her have that moment. You know, the parents were phenomenal.

Speaker 3:
They are phenomenal. Girl Scout troop leaders and parents give so many volunteer hours, and I just want to acknowledge that. And so many of us do in whatever we do, whether it's our kids do soccer, piano, if we're involved in the PTA, I think there's a culture in America where whatever your passion is, whatever your kid's passion is, you're going to relate to this story.
Because again, it's not just the Girl Scouts. It's about those precious moments in life when when kids do believe that anything is possible or can believe that anything is possible. And how do parents navigate that is part of the story. Although we really remain like the camera remains in the POV of the kids. If you notice, I wanted to sort of mostly frame out the adults and let them come into the kids world when they did. But it's not like a reality TV where you go interview the parents to talk about things as they're happening. It's very immersive and very organic. And the moments with the parents are very much about the girl's point of view on the parents.

Speaker 2:
Yeah, that came through loud and clear. One of the things that I wanted to ask you, I've spoken to a number of independent filmmakers over the past year. We've had a lot of challenges with distribution, getting into theaters. You're opening August 7th and all these theaters. Now, did this opportunity come because of a film festival? Like you were open, you premiered at Sundance? Was it something that came up afterwards? How did this opportunity come about?

Speaker 3:
Yes. So Cookie Queens premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2026, which was just a dream come true. I had had other films as a producer at Sundance, but this was my first directing project to premiere there. And it was a perfect fit. And then it went to South by Southwest and we won an audience award. And by then actually out of Sundance, we did link up with Roadside attractions who immediately saw, I think the response at Sundance, which in the Eccles theater, it's 1200 seats and people, I was like, did these people see the movie before?
Because people were cheering and laughing, like almost like they had seen it before, you know, because it was, it just felt like instantly, um, yeah, the energy was electric. And so I know that the team at Roadside saw that. And when they understand how a movie has an audience and why it needs to be in theaters, I've seen them just do such an awesome job in the past.
And we're super excited to be able to get this film to audiences all over the country that way.

Speaker 2:
I noticed you have several producers in the mix, but you also have Archwell Productions. How did that connection come about?

Speaker 3:
Yeah. So, um, Cookie Queens, like I said, is a totally independent film, um, that my producers and I originated and we actually got our financing through, um, independent investors and grant makers and foundations like Ford and the Harnish Foundation, Artemis Rising, Good Gravy. Um, and we also ended up finding out that, um, the principals at Archwell, including, um, the Duchess of Sussex, Megan Duchess of Sussex was a Girl Scout herself actually here in Los Angeles, which is the same council as Nikki from our film, Nikki, Nala, and Naya.
And so when our agents were looking around at people who might be interested in joining our team, I think it was just such a personal fit for Megan that it felt really natural for her and for us. And we're super excited to have them supporting the film, helping us get it out there and amplifying the voices of these kids. It's a great opportunity to have them on our team of EPs.

Speaker 2:
one of the things that I thought was great was the archival footage that I saw and I being a Girl Scout myself I was looking at the uniforms and everything and I was like I don't remember that but maybe that you know so oh you're talking so there's only there's one archival moment in the

Speaker 3:
film at the beginning in the opening montage and actually I love that you picked that out because I worked on that with a dear friend of mine Mariam Ghani who is an archival producer and a director herself. I've worked with her on multiple projects. And my sort of intention with that opening was to track Girl Scout, the Girl Scout cookie program in particular, over time from its roots in kind of women baking in their kitchens, which is a revolutionary thing in a way because women at that point, up until the 70s, you know, my mother-in-law couldn't even get a bank account without her brother co-signing when she wasn't married. People are surprised. Women couldn't get

Speaker 2:
a checking account on their own, you know, like, yes, but it's not that long ago. And I think that

Speaker 3:
so the cookie program originated and I'm not, you know, like Girl Scouts have a lot of information out there for people who really want all the fact checking. But, you know, it starts with women and girls baking to raise money to support the activities that they were doing with Girl Scouts. And and then it becomes more and more, it becomes bigger and bigger and bigger, it really takes off. And now it's this industrial, you know, cookie bakers are making, you know, $800 million worth of cookies a year. And so the opening montage tracks that, but in so doing, also we get these looks, these glimpses at Girl Scouts of the past. And I think it's such an important thing to note how impactful, you know, one in three American women, including my mom, has been a Girl Scout in their lives. And, and it's, it's something that, you know, in my mom's generation, you, that's what you could do. If you were a girl, you could be a Girl Scout or a cheerleader. You know, you couldn't do soccer like I did or things like that.
And if you were an athletic, active kid, that was your option. And I'm so glad that it has been an option and continues to be an option because when at the troop level, these people are doing amazing

Speaker 2:
things. Oh, absolutely. And also you notice like, for example, Shannon and Elizabeth, they had the blue jackets on. They were known as the Southwest group. I was in the nation's capital region group, you know, so it really came back a lot. And how my mother was also a troop leader. And I remember pulling the red wagon, but it was not as fancy as the one Ara asked. I love that. And yeah,

Speaker 3:
the stats get higher. You know, there's a correlation between success in life and participation in Girl Scouts. You know, correlation is not necessarily causation, but it is definitely a correlation. And, you know, to tell the story of these young girls right now, who are finding sisterhood, finding a safe space for them to grow up together with girls who are diverse too.
The troops that each of these girls in Cookie Queens come from are troops that are not homogenous socioeconomically, racially. They're interacting with girls in their cities, in their communities, and also with customers. They encounter all kinds of things.
I mean, you know from the film, Like, it's hilarious and also sometimes heartbreaking what kids are learning about the world through selling cookies and putting themselves out there. And yet, arguably, it's much more important to learn how to sell something or how to deal with somebody who is rude or who is insulting than it is to, say, start a fire in the woods. Although, my respect to people who can start a fire in the woods, you know?

Speaker 2:
I noticed at the, when I went to the screening at DC Docs, it said in memory of Stacey Pies. Who is Stacey Pies? That's so sweet of you to ask.

Speaker 3:
I might get emotional, but Stacey Pies is my mentor. That's okay. She's my mentor.
And actually she was, she got kicked out of Girl Scouts. She was that kind of person, just really, you know, her own person, her own thinker. And she was my professor at college.
And Stacey saw the film, A Work in Progress, before she passed away. And so I wanted to dedicate it to her because she's the one that catalyzed my first becoming a filmmaker. She was a poet and a writer and a teacher.
So thank you for asking about her. It felt apt to dedicate the film to someone who inspired me in my ambition.

Speaker 2:
That's wonderful. So if we were to go into your production office or if we went into the production office of roadside attractions, which cookie flavors would be there in the snack drawer? Thin Mints, Samoas?

Speaker 3:
Well, I mean, you can't have a Girl Scout cookie party and not have the greatest hits because people want their Thin Mints, their Samoas, and their Tagalongs. I actually, because we had so many cookies during production, was able to sample everything multiple times. And I will say that one of the sleeper hits, if you're willing to invest in it, is the lemonade. It's only available in certain councils, but it's a big lemon glazed cookie.

Speaker 2:
And it's really good. Yeah, I don't think I've had, there's lemon ups, I think I might have.

Speaker 3:
Yeah. So some councils have lemon ups, which I think are, sorry to say, less good than the lemonades, which are in other regions. So you may have to import. But I kind of like that about

Speaker 2:
Girl Scout cookies that there's like turf wars. No, that, that, that, that's awesome. So where can people learn more about the film? Any, any, do you have a website and anything you want to share

Speaker 3:
about? Yes. Yeah. Like you said, Cookie Queens comes out August 7th in theaters. Our website is cookiequeensfilm.com. And we actually just opened a merch store if people want to get their quotes from the girls and fun stuff like that. And then tickets are also, there's a link to ticketing for which are on sale now already. And then we are on Instagram at Cookie Queens film, and would love for folks to follow us. And there's lots more news to come about the film and its rollout. So yeah, what a journey. And what I do feel grateful you mentioned earlier about like how challenging it can be for nonfiction films to be in theaters. So I feel so excited and grateful and we need people to come support. And I also hope that young people can see a movie, a nonfiction movie in a theater because I didn't get to do that till I was in college. And I would love for young people to experience a nonfiction film in a theater. And if it's this one.

Speaker 2:
Well, the film is Cookie Queens. It's rated G. It's 91 minutes. And it's definitely a fun, family friendly film. I recommend it to everybody. And any other closing thoughts?
Thank you, Sandra.

Speaker 3:
No, I'm just so happy to be here. Grateful for your enthusiasm. And I hope the audience enjoys the film.

Speaker 2:
Well, thank you and congratulations on the film. Looking for more podcasts about film and television? Media Maker Spotlight recommends...

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Speaker 1:
Thanks for listening to Media Maker Spotlight from Women in Film and Video. To learn more about WIF, visit wif.frankv.org. This podcast is produced by Sandra Abrams, Candice Block, Brandon Ferry, Tara Jabari, and Jerry Reinhart.
And edited by Michelle Kim. With audio production and mix by Steve Lack Audio and Ed Saltzman. Subscribe to continue learning from more amazing media makers.
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