.jpg)
PRODUCTION WRAPS ON THE OFFICIAL LILITH FAIR DOCUMENTARY DIRECTED BY ALLY PANKIW
The documentary was made with the full support and authorization of Sarah McLachlan
The film was commissioned by CBC and is produced by Dan Levy’s Not A Real Production Company and Elevation Pictures and is presented by White Horse Pictures in association with Epic Magazine
The documentary also reunites and features interviews from original Lilith Fair artists Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Erykah Badu, Paula Cole, Jewel, Mýa, among others
TORONTO - (July 9, 2024) Dan Levy’s Not A Real Production Company, Elevation Pictures (Infinity Pool, Alice, Darling) and CBC are excited to announce that production has been completed on the upcoming official LILITH FAIR documentary presented by White Horse Pictures (Lucy & Desi, The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart) in association with Epic Magazine. The film is produced with the support of the original Lilith Fair founders – Sarah McLachlan, Terry McBride, Dan Fraser, and Marty Diamond, who will executive produce. The documentary is directed by Ally Pankiw (I Used to Be Funny, Black Mirror, The Great) and tells the story of the groundbreaking music festival featuring only women artists, started by Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan and her team in the late-1990s in direct opposition to the prevailing “industry wisdom” that limited women from playing together on a concert bill and getting back-to-back airplay on the radio.
The tour, which McLachlan titled Lilith Fair, attracted an array of stars like Sheryl Crow, Jewel, Tracy Chapman, Fiona Apple, the Indigo Girls, Erykah Badu, Bonnie Raitt, and Liz Phair, and quickly went from longshot idea to cultural juggernaut. Over three enormously successful summers, Lilith Fair helped launch the careers of artists like Missy Elliott, The Chicks, Nelly Furtado, and Christina Aguilera, raised millions of dollars for women’s charities, and catapulted feminist and queer representation into mainstream pop culture.
Commissioned by CBC with the participation of the Canada Media Fund and the Rogers Group of Funds, LILITH FAIR is produced by Dan Levy for Not A Real Production Company and Elevation’s Christina Piovesan. Executive producers are Cassidy Hartmann, Nicholas Ferrall, Nigel Sinclair and Jeanne Elfant Festa for White Horse; Noah Segal for Elevation; Jessica Hopper; Arthur Spector, Joshuah Bearman, and Joshua Davis for Epic Magazine; Ally Pankiw,
Steve Cohen and Paula Froehle for Chicago Media Project; and Wayne Isaak. Rachel McLean serves as supervising producer and the cinematographer is Nina Djacic. The documentary is presented by Chicago Media Project and produced in association with Epic Magazine, Carlene Laughlin, Minderoo Pictures, and the Elfant Festa Family. Elevation Pictures will distribute theatrically in Canada, and the feature will premiere during the 2025-26 season of documentary showcase The Passionate Eye on CBC and CBC Gem. White Horse Pictures is acting as sales agent Worldwide.
Lilith Fair exemplifies the ‘cool older sister’ of the music industry, who already knows the joys and nightmares of being a woman and tries to make the path a little bit easier for future generations. I want to give a deeper understanding of the festival to the young female, non-binary and queer musicians and music fans who picked up a guitar or tickets to a concert for the first time because Lilith showed them how,” says director Ally Pankiw. “I am so excited to work with Dan Levy as a producer on this film, as we have had many wonderful experiences as collaborators who have been able to shed light on characters and heroes not often given a second look.”
Dan Levy added, “Lilith Fair holds a very special place in my heart. It was one of the first spaces where I remember feeling at home. The music, the sense of community, and the power of a group of women proving an entire industry wrong was a tremendous thing to experience. What Sarah built with that festival changed so much for so many people. And while it is now seen as an odds-defying success story, it was an uphill battle every step of the way. And there is a lot to be learned from that story. I’m thrilled to join Sarah on this adventure and am excited for everyone to understand just how revolutionary Lilith Fair really was.”
“Originating with Canadian icon Sarah McLachlan, the Lilith Fair festival changed the course of the music industry beginning in the late 1990s and its reverberations are still being felt today,” said Sally Catto, General Manager, Entertainment, Factual and Sports, CBC. “In collaboration with the film’s talented creative team, we look forward to giving audiences across the country rare access to this turning point in music history, seen through a contemporary lens.”
“This is a story that’s long overdue and also deeply relevant in today’s times,” added Cassidy Hartmann for White Horse. “We’re so excited to be working with Ally, Dan, and Elevation to bring Lilith Fair’s groundbreaking achievements and impact to light, and to help share its many joys with a wider audience.”
In addition to charting the underdog story of Lilith’s success, the film takes a fresh look at the often-toxic culture of the music industry in the ’90s and the backlash that emerged against Lilith Fair, which marginalized Lilith Fair artists and made the tour a cultural punchline. It also follows McLachlan’s journey, illuminating how she became the person who turned the Lilith idea into a phenomenon, following her into the present day as she, and others, grapple with today’s music industry and the festival’s legacy.
The doc is inspired by the 2019 article, “Building a Mystery: An Oral History of Lilith Fair”, from Vanity Fair and Epic Magazine, written by Jessica Hopper with Sasha Geffen and Jenn Pelly. It will draw from more than 600 hours of never-before-seen archival footage as well as new interviews and stories from fans, festival organizers, and artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl
Crow, Erykah Badu, Natalie Merchant, Mýa, Jewel, Indigo Girls, Emmylou Harris, Brandi Carlile and Olivia Rodrigo. LILITH FAIR contextualizes the festival’s story within a larger cultural
moment to explore how the tide of “girl power” helped give rise to some of the festival’s most insurgent stars and continues to inspire the music and progressive movements of today.
Executive producing alongside the Lilith Fair founders are Lynne Stopkewich, Jessica Fraser, and Dean English. Along with Steve Cohen and Paula Froehle, Rose Lizzaraga and David Scherer, Eric and Barb Dobkin, Bill Gee and Sue Crothers will executive produce for Chicago Media Project. Blue Skyzz Trust and Christina Nolan will Co-Executive Produce.
For CBC, Sally Catto is General Manager, Entertainment, Factual, & Sports; Jennifer Dettman is Executive Director, Unscripted Content; Sandra Kleinfeld is Senior Director, Documentary; and Michelle McCree is Executive in Charge of Production, CBC Docs and The Passionate Eye.
ABOUT ELEVATION PICTURES
About Elevation Pictures:
Founded in 2013 with finance partner Teddy Schwarzman of Black Bear, Elevation Pictures has become Canada’s leading entertainment company specializing in distribution and production. Elevation is known for releasing commercial and critically acclaimed films, including Academy Award-winning films The Imitation Game, Room, The Father, Moonlight, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest.
Elevation Pictures is also known for its strong slate of Canadian films, French Girl starring Vanessa Hudgens, BlackBerry starring Jay Baruchel, Irena’s Vow starring Sophie Nelisse and Elevation productions Alice, Darling starring Anna Kendrick, Infinity Pool starring Mia Goth. For more information, please visit elevationpictures.com
ABOUT NOT A REAL PRODUCTION COMPANY
NOT A REAL PRODUCTION COMPANY is a production company founded in 2022 by Emmy Award-winning multi-hyphenate Dan Levy. Levy’s focus is to produce content across multiple genres, building off the record-breaking success he achieved with SCHITT’S CREEK. The company’s first series, THE BIG BRUNCH, debuted in 2022 on MAX, with Levy as the creator, host, and judge alongside Chef Sohla El-Waylly and restaurateur Will Guidara. Levy's directorial debut GOOD GRIEF, an original film that he wrote, produced, and stars in alongside Ruth Negga and Himesh Patel, was released on Netflix in January 2024. The company recently produced a short film, DECADES OF CONFUSION, for the luxury fashion house LOEWE. Not a Real Production Company has several projects in various stages of development under a multi-year scripted overall deal with Netflix.
ABOUT CBC/RADIO-CANADA
CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcaster. Through our mandate to inform, enlighten and entertain, we play a central role in strengthening Canadian culture. As Canada’s trusted news source, we offer a uniquely Canadian perspective on news, current affairs and world affairs. Our distinctively homegrown entertainment programming draws audiences from across the country. Deeply rooted in communities, CBC/Radio-Canada offers diverse content in English, French and eight Indigenous languages. We also deliver content in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Punjabi and Tagalog, as well as both official languages, through Radio Canada
International (RCI). We are leading the transformation to meet the needs of Canadians in a digital world.
ABOUT WHITE HORSE PICTURES
White Horse Pictures is a production company focused on high-quality, commercial content creation across various different media - Film, TV, Documentaries, and Digital. Documentaries: Its NO DIRECTION HOME: BOB DYLAN, directed by Martin Scorsese, won a Grammy, a Peabody Award, a DuPont Award, and was nominated for an Emmy. AMAZING JOURNEY: THE STORY OF THE WHO was nominated for a Grammy and an Emmy.
In 2011, White Horse films won an Oscar for Best Picture for UNDEFEATED, an Emmy for GEORGE HARRISON: LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD and Grammy for FOO FIGHTERS: BACK AND FORTH. In 2016, they produced the Grammy-winning and Critics Choice Award-winning, BAFTA-nominated THE BEATLES: EIGHT DAYS AWEEK - THE TOURING YEARS, directed by Ron Howard. Subsequently, PAVAROTTI, directed by Ron Howard, Emmy Winning, THE APOLLO, directed by Roger Ross Williams, and the Emmy nominated THE BEE GEES: HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART, directed by Frank Marshall and produced with the Kennedy/Marshall team.
Most recently, their documentary LUCY AND DESI, directed by Amy Poehler, premiered on Amazon and was nominated for six Emmys, winning two. They have two projects at this year's South by Southwest festival, one of which was the documentary series STAX: SOULSVILLE, U.S.A., which won the SXSW TV Premiere Audience Award and premiered on HBO in May. Also in May, their feature documentary, THE BEACH BOYS, premiered on Disney+, directed by Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny, co-produced with Kennedy Marshall.
ABOUT ALLY PANKIW After being named one of Hollywood Reporter’s “Top 15 Canadian Talents to Watch,” Ally Pankiw made her TV directing debut with Netflix’s Feel Good, created by comic Mae Martin. Pankiw directed and executive produced the show’s first season, which was critically acclaimed as one of the best series of 2020. Pankiw has since directed on Hulu’s Shrill, starring Aidy Bryant, on Tony McNamara’s Emmy-nominated comedy, The Great, with Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult, and helmed the much lauded “Joan Is Awful” episode of Netflix’s Black Mirror, starring Annie Murphy, Salma Hayek, Michael Cera, Ben Barnes, Ayo Edebiri and Rob Delaney. Most recently, she wrote, directed and executive produced her first film, I Used To Be Funny, starring Rachel Sennott. In addition to her work in film and TV, Pankiw has built an impressive career in music videos and branded content. She has directed ad campaigns for top brand and publications like Amazon, adidas, Chanel and NYLON, and spearheaded a series of Women in #STEM shorts for MTV and The Ad Council. She has also directed and produced videos with artists such as Ariana Grande, Phoebe Bridgers, and Sabrina Carpenter.
ABOUT JESSICA HOPPER
Jessica Hopper is an award-winning director/producer of music documentary work, including the 4-part series Women Who Rock (Amazon/MGM+, 2022) and Courtney Love’s Women (BBC,
2024). Hopper is also the author of four books, notably, The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic. In 2021, Hopper co-founded her production company, Golden Teapot, which focuses on elevating untold music stories; their 8-part podcast GROUPIES: Women of the Sunset Strip from the Pill to Punk premieres this fall.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Kate Parkes, Director of Communications
Elevation Pictures
647-448-8556
Frances Bedford, CBC PR
Frances.Bedford@cbc.ca
416-205-7673
