Pennsylvania is always a swing state come election time, and 2024 was no different. But, heading to one town in particular to talk to its residents about their split views, the creators of “Bucks County, USA” admit that they discovered their own inherent “judgment.”
Premiering the first two episodes at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the five-part docuseries tells the story of Evi and Vanessa, two 14-year-olds living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who are best friends, despite their opposing political beliefs.
As nationwide disputes over public education explode into vitriol and division in their hometown, the girls and others in the community fight to discover the humanity in “the other side.”
Stopping by TheWrap’s Sundance Studio presented by World of Hyatt, producer Jason Sosnoff and director and executive producer Robert May revealed that talking to “the other side” themselves was actually a “heart-opening experience.”
“You start to realize the more you talk to people that you have an incredible amount of judgment. You’re not even aware of it,” Sosnoff said. “And so I found myself actually responding very openly to the conservatives in the piece and just sort of seeing how they felt they had been demonized. And when you start talking to somebody for long enough, particularly if you’re in the same room as them, you’re going to start to see their humanity.”
He added that talking to these people was helpful, but earning their trust actually came down to listening. Doing that resulted in the conservative community enjoying the episodes they saw.
“It has to be genuine, you know?” May agreed. “And I really care about these people that we’ve been talking with, every one of them. And they stay in constant contact with us now because they feel like they’ve developed this bond with us of trust. And they’ve seen the piece, and they felt that we didn’t twist their words, we didn’t do any gotcha moments, just like we said we wouldn’t. Everything was in context.”
You can watch TheWrap’s full discussion with Levinson and May in the video above.
