Director’s Statement from Co-Director Miranda Winters

When Rocky & I began working on what would become Moms Club five years ago, we weren’t exactly sure what we were filming. We were actively documenting the George Floyd uprising and recognized undeniable patterns in the oppositional reaction to the movement. The same individuals were showing up for different causes, using the same tactics, with the same talking points. Not knowing where our journey would lead us, we continued our coverage of protests and rallies on both sides of the issues, including, but not limited to, lockdowns, masking, vaccines, abortion, and trans rights. These were not easy years – we were often met with threats, sometimes with violence, and always with vitriol.

At the end of 2023, we were connected to a group of moms that were finding similar patterns at their local Southern California school board meetings. We got to know them, quickly learning that these were some of the most determined and effective activists we had encountered during our years of documentation. They were also some of the most courageous, in the fact that they were willing to go on camera and discuss their activities.

The main issue being raised in local school boards was the introduction of a ‘parental notification’ policy for gender nonconforming kids. As we examined our footage, exchanged information with the moms, and reached out to others doing similar research, we realized that we could connect the dots from local school board issues to a well-financed, highly organized, and decades old effort to destroy public education as we know it. There was an organization, supposedly a nonpartisan nonprofit, that was willing to exploit and endanger the most vulnerable among us to stir up outrage in misinformed parents. It became our mission to tell the story of the moms’ resistance and expose the organization pulling the strings.

In Moms Club, the audience witnesses a truly grassroots community of determined women who converge to create a force stronger than the sum of its parts. They fight endlessly, knowing that each step they take in defense of vulnerable people is worth taking, even if those victories seem small in the face of a massive political apparatus. It is a story of perseverance, with one clear lesson: Battles will be won and lost, but the fight will rage on, so stick together and keep going.

Miranda Winters

Co-Director, Moms Club