In January, programmers at the Tribeca Film Festival called director Penny Lane to check on the status of her latest project “Mrs. America,” which follows married contestants chasing the tiara in the pageant that is far less known than the iconic Miss America.
The documentarian behind “Hail Satan?” and “Listening to Kenny G” was in the process of wrapping Episodes 1 and 2 in a four-chapter arc and figured that the festival was making early inquiries for Tribeca 2026. To Lane’s surprise, they saw no need to wait.
“They were like, ‘Let’s show it [this year] because then you can experience it with an audience and really collect feedback in that ineffable way that you can only do if you see it in a room full of strangers,” Lane recalls. “So, I thought, ‘Yeah. Take a pause in the edit and look at what we have so far and think about how we want to bring it home for Episodes 3 and 4.’”
While docuseries have begun to take root within film festival slates, “Mrs. America” might be the first to debut as a work-in-progress when it premieres at Tribeca on June 8. As an added bonus, “Mrs. America” is a market title, so buyers will get an early peek at the project, which will likely appeal to the same audiences that made Netflix’s “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” a buzzy hit. Anonymous Content, which co-financed “Mrs. America” alongside Freemantle, is handling sales.
“We’re in a new world order when it comes to selling in the unscripted space, and I think this is an interesting experiment to see how it works — letting buyers into the process early,” says Anonymous Content’s Jessica Grimshaw, who is an executive producer. “It gives buyers a chance to come in, put their seal on something, still have a real say over it, but also get to experience what Penny’s vision was from day one.”
For her first-ever series, Lane immersed herself in the quirky subculture of Mrs. America hopefuls. For a Brooklyn-based filmmaker who followed the out-of-nowhere rise of the controversial religious group known as the Satanic Temple for “Hail Satan?” or the improbable global appeal of Kenny G, Lane might seem ill suited for pageant life.
“I could not be less of a pageant person,” Lane says with a laugh as she points to her own getup, which includes some hastily applied lipstick and a T-shirt. “But I’m just always looking for something that immediately explodes some kind of preconception I have. I think of beauty pageants as being for girls or young women. And there was something so immediately captivating to me about the different age demographic. They’re adults. Like life has happened to them. Sometimes they have aging parents. Many of them have children and careers and just complex lives. And I was captivated and wanted to know everything about it.”
With unprecedented access, Lane takes viewers through the grueling circuit of heels, hair dryers and fake eyelashes with a tone that is both absurd and whimsical, but never snarky. Nicole La Ha, who parlayed the title of Mrs. America 2022 into a successful run as Illinois State Representative in the 82nd District, is among the participants. She says she was initially skeptical about appearing on-camera but decided to “take the leap of faith” with Lane, who appeared genuinely interested in the community.
Alongside Grimshaw, executive producers include names familiar in Hollywood like Fremantle’s Mandy Chang and Anonymous Content’s Nick Shumaker and David Levine as well as a recognizable face in Whitney Sudler-Smith, star of Bravo’s “Southern Charm,” who served as the point of access to some of the participants who hail from the Sun Belt.
The contestants cover a broad range of demographics — including age, race and income — but share a common goal of making it to the finals in Las Vegas and capturing the ultimate sash for women who have aged out of the Miss America pursuit. On paper, it might sound trite. But Lane prods viewers to challenge their own expectations and preconceptions.
Says the director: “There’s something about standing there [in a swimsuit competition] and being willing to be seen in this very vulnerable way. If you had asked me what I thought about that two, three years ago, I’d be like, ‘What? It seems demeaning.’ But I don’t feel that way now. I feel more complicated about it. I now get the grit and the strength and the kind of courage that it takes to do that. Enjoying these kinds of feminine sparkles and the nails and the gowns and the tiaras is pretty joyful.”
