Daniel Meisel and his wife, director Amy Wendel, first heard about the high school subculture of girl's power lifting while watching a segment of 60 Minutes. They found the story of determination so compelling that they travelled to the small Texas town where the story was filmed to meet and film some of the women profiled. It wasn't long before the idea of making their own feature film was born, and when I spoke to Meisel on September 16, 2011, one of the things I was most interested in asking him was how an outsider couple from New York gained the trust of the locals who, in turn, then trusted them to tell their story. Issues of authenticity, language, and why power lifting is such a powerful metaphor for how life should work also came up, as well as why this story of rural Texas is more universal than it might seem at first glance.

Daniel Meisel and his wife, director Amy Wendel, first heard about the high school subculture of girl's power lifting while watching a segment of 60 Minutes. They found the story of determination so compelling that they travelled to the small Texas town where the story was filmed to meet and film some of the women profiled. It wasn't long before the idea of making their own feature film was born, and when I spoke to Meisel on September 16, 2011, one of the things I was most interested in asking him was how an outsider couple from New York gained the trust of the locals who, in turn, then trusted them to tell their story. Issues of authenticity, language, and why power lifting is such a powerful metaphor for how life should work also came up, as well as why this story of rural Texas is more universal than it might seem at first glance.