Searchlights will mark the VIP opening for a new movie complex in Petaluma tonight, but it will really be a celebration of the tenacity of seven teenage girls who shared a dream and made it come true.

If not for the “Superb Seven,” as the girls have dubbed themselves, Petaluma’s 55,000 or so residents would still have to trek to Rohnert Park or Novato to catch a film.

Through sheer will and charm, the girls lobbied local politicians, negotiated with theater owners, won support from Lucasfilm executives and ultimately persuaded a developer to build a theater as the anchor of a $100 million downtown redevelopment project that otherwise might not have gotten off the ground.

“If they didn’t believe in us in the beginning, they sure as hell believe us now,” said one of the teens, 16-year-old Ashley Ditmer.

The girls—Noëlle Bisson, Elizabeth Comstock, Ditmer, Liza Hall, Sarah Marcia, Taylor Norman and Madison Webb—are all 16, except Comstock, who is 15.