Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery reexamines Sarah McLachlan’s iconic festival, reframing it as a bold feminist milestone instead of the punchline it became. (MANDATORY CREDIT Ebet Roberts/Redferns) Sarah McLachlan perfoms at Lilith Fair at the Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, New York on July 15, 1998. (Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns)
Redferns
For too long, the phrase Lilith Fair has existed within the public’s mindset as something of a punchline, instead of the bold feminist experiment that it was. The event, which ran for several years in the ’90s and was shepherded by singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan, who was at the height of her fame at the time, brought together some of the biggest female artists of the era to play to massive crowds. The trek, which toured across the United States and Canada, was created as a means to show that festivals weren’t just for male acts, and that women could sell tickets just like their male counterparts.
While Lilith Fair was commercially successful — at least for a while — the conversation about the groundbreaking festival took a negative turn, and it was dismissed as soft or uncool. That trivialization of just how important Lilith Fair was, and still is to this day, is part of the reason why a new documentary about the event is a perfect fit for our times.
Unlike some music-related documentaries, Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery isn’t only about telling a story, but also rectifying a wrongdoing. Director Ally Pankiw said in a recent interview that she is always struck by how quickly the contributions made by women in music are brushed aside.
“Lilith is one of many examples of women’s contributions not being highlighted as well as they could be or should be,” she explains. “In the immediate aftermath of Lilith, we were being told as a society and through pop culture that caring about that style of music or that type of thing, that feminist celebration, was lame. The collective punchline and joke in pop culture was that things that women enjoy are not meant to be taken as seriously as the things that men enjoy in the mainstream.”
For producer Lisa Hartmann, her desire to revisit Lilith Fair and paint it in a new light was even more personal. She stated in the same conversation that when she was a teenager in the ’90s and Lilith Fair was traveling across the country, she acutely understood and absorbed the ridicule that was directed at the event, and even let it shape some of her own choices — something that she regrets now. “I was in high school during Lilith Fair. I remember the jokes. I really internalized them. I didn’t go because it didn’t seem cool to me at the time. What a tragedy that is to me now.”
Both filmmakers state that when making this documentary, unlearning was central to the story and the purpose behind the movie. Documenting Lilith Fair isn’t just about celebrating what worked — it was also about acknowledging why the commercially viable concert trek was so belittled. And once that’s understood, it’s about showing how that perception was never really the story, and pointing out that Lilith Fair was far more influential, important, and even successful than many people realize.
When something becomes the butt of a joke, sometimes it’s all in jest, and sometimes that commentary overshadows the accomplishments of a person, movement, or event.
The difference between when Lilith Fair was operating and today is like night and day for women in music. Many of the biggest stars on the planet right now — those who not only conquer the charts, but sell out stadiums — are women. They’re the kind of singer-songwriters who might have toured with Lilith Fair back in the day and earned the ire that some of the headliners did for taking part.
Only a few decades have passed, but the contributions of women in not just the creative aspect of music, but the business side of the industry, are much more respected today than they were even a short time ago. This new lens can also be applied to the work of artists like McLachlan, as well as several others whose songs and ventures may have been trivialized.
The filmmakers used Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery — named after one of McLachlan’s most famous songs — as an opportunity to reframe Lilith Fair as a misunderstood moment in the history of music. The movie challenges the viewer to rethink how pop culture is defined and discussed in the first place, which stories get told and from what angles, and who ends up the loser and why. This documentary, which is now streaming on Hulu, is one that aims to be fair and honest, but also has an agenda.
Hugh McIntyre: I was so happy to see this hit my inbox, because I wasn’t at Lilith Fair, but I’ve known what it is for so long, and I love so many of those artists. As I’m watching, I’m thinking, I can’t believe we’re getting the first real Lilith Fair doc in 2025 after so many years. Why do you think it took until now?
Ally Pankiw: Misogyny. Lilith is one of many examples of women’s contributions not being highlighted as well as they could be or should be. I think in the immediate aftermath of Lilith, we were being told as a society and through pop culture that caring about that style of music or that type of thing, or that feminist sort of celebration was lame. The collective punchline and joke in pop culture was, things that women enjoy are not meant to be taken as seriously as the things that men enjoy in the mainstream.
It was probably hard for the legacy of it, the memory of it, to crawl out from under that first wave of recollection. But I think we’re doing that overall with that time period. There have been a lot of docs and books recently that are exploring… Whoa, what did that era do to us as young people? I think we’re finally getting there.
Cassidy Hartmann: Something that was a great opportunity for us was that a lot of the artists who participated in Lilith are at a point in their lives when they have a perspective now on that experience. They’re also maybe not as constrained by some of the fears they might have had earlier about speaking out. We were able to catch a lot of those women at a time when they wanted to talk.
Pankiw: Now there’s not as much of a fear of punitive action for being like, “That sucked!,” you know? There’s more support for artists that come out and speak truth to power now. It’s considered kind of cool now, which is a very lucky thing – that speaking truth to power doesn’t immediately get you shut out of spaces. Of course, it’s still an uphill battle. We have a long way to go, as we’re seeing right now in the world.
I think it’s also why it’s really exciting that this doc is coming out at this moment in time. We are seeing a like, pull back on funding for diverse voices in the arts and in entertainment. There’s like a cautionary tale here to be told. Don’t miss out on investing in the opportunity that women bring in the art and the systems that they present.
McIntyre: I was going to set that up and ask, why? Why do you think it’s a good time for this to come out?
Pankiw: I’ve been talking about this for a couple weeks! This was a huge financial success, and we need to continue to invest in women and the systems they build. You know, it usually goes pretty well when we do
McIntyre: Was this a project that Sarah initiated, or was it initiated outside and then brought to her?
Hartmann: It was a long journey. The spark of the idea for this film started with the oral history article that was written by Jessica Hopper. That was back in the fall of 2019. She spoke to Sarah for that piece. They spoke to, like, 150 artists and crew members for that article.
It was a really powerful piece, and it struck a lot of us reading it. First of all, what an incredible story it was. It’s such a great underdog story that they were able to pull this off. I thought it would work, and that was a story that clearly hadn’t been told.
Then, also, just how much it affected everyone who was involved. I think [that] came through in that piece, reading it. I read it when it came out, and I felt like there’s a movie here, clearly.
We went to Sarah, who had already been talking a little bit to Epic, because they were already kind of thinking about this. And so we wound up partnering with Epic to do the film, and Sarah was thankfully on board as well. And then we partnered with Elevation in Canada because we knew it was going to be a very Canadian story. Through Epic, we were introduced to Dan [Levy], who they were working with on something else. They knew that Dan had a real personal connection to Lilith, and he was very passionate about it. So we met with Dan, and he suggested Ally to direct. We’re very fortunate that as soon as we got on the call with her, we were like, this is the person to direct this film.
Pankiw: By the end of the first conversation, we were all crying. It felt very thematically linked for all of us in our lives. Like we all had similar connection points to the material and reasons for wanting to tell the story.
As soon as Dan was like, would you ever want to talk to these producers? I can’t think of a better story to help tell. It was, it was really magical.
McIntyre: Was there a goal in mind when you started making this?
Pankiw: Yeah. In terms of the legacy of Lilith itself, this thing was misremembered. My goal was to try and explore why. What were all the forces at work that didn’t allow it to be lifted up and celebrated properly in its time, and immediately after? And then, how can we help rectify that? That was my external goal.
My more personal, internal goal was to continue doing some of the unlearning around what that era of pop culture had taught me about myself and what it means to be a young queer woman in the world. To really confront what that era looked like and how up against it young women were.
Hartmann: I think there was a motivation to correct the cultural memory of what Lilith was. I was in high school during Lilith fair. I remember the jokes. I really internalized them. I didn’t go because it didn’t seem cool to me at the time. And what a tragedy that is to me now.
To be able to have people of my generation look at this and understand that experience they went through a little bit better. And as Ally said, unlearn some of those things that we were taught in the 90s, I think, is really important.
Also to be able to have a younger generation look at this film, and, first of all, see what’s possible when you actually support women and you believe in something. I hoped that it would be an inspiration as well.
Pankiw: Yeah, and to see how far we could follow those ripple effects too. What has it changed in the music industry? We joked about it at the Q&A after TIFF, but, it is a long con to get Sarah to bring back. That is the actual real end goal of doing all of this. We all worked for over five years so that Sarah would remember how amazing it was, and bring it back.
McIntyre: I didn’t even know that there had been a revival, and it’s so briefly mentioned here. Is that because that wasn’t the story you were telling, or maybe you didn’t want to focus on the lack of success?
Pankiw: I felt like it needed to be mentioned. You couldn’t just gloss over it. We wanted to get there at the end of the film. So we didn’t want to go too far down that diversion, as we’re steaming towards the end and the messaging of the film, but we also felt like there were so many things at play in that era, in the 2000s. Had we properly dug into all of the myriad reasons why that version of Lilith didn’t work, that could have been a whole other doc.
We’re ultimately trying to tell the story of what was accomplished in the 90s.
Hartmann: There’s a lot of reasons why 2010 didn’t work, and it’s a really complicated thing, some of them having to do with Lilith Fair, some of them having to do with that moment in time in this country and music industry.
McIntyre: Well, you have to save something for the sequel. I learned a lot about Lilith, which makes for a great doc, but I really didn’t know about the controversy around the lineup at first being too white. I was really happy to see that here. Can you talk about how you wanted to celebrate this achievement and yet simultaneously shine a light on the not so glamorous parts of the history?
Pankiw: We just want to be honest as doc filmmakers. Also it’s very important to me as someone who strives to be very intersectional in my feminism as much as I can… It would have felt like a big oversight, I think, to not touch on that.
Sarah was so open to talking about what was able to be improved, and what they got wrong, and how they tried to rectify things. She wanted to talk about that. It wasn’t like us as the filmmakers forcing her to [be] very open about all of it.
She’s such a great example of being open to criticism and not getting defensive. You just don’t see that from famous people anymore. It seems like the reaction now is you dig in your heels, and to see someone handle something like that with so much grace…
I think it’s a really good case study of someone who took feedback and handled it with grace and tried to become a little bit more intersectional with each year. I think there were things that still could have been improved by the third year, by ‘99 and probably if they had kept going in succession right after those things probably would have been improved upon too.
McIntyre: When you have the subject – you have Sarah on board – I assume you have access to whatever archives Lilith had, she had you. So what was the difficult part about making this?
Pankiw: There was just too much to go through. It was just this embarrassment of riches. Once one chunk of archive was starting to be chipped away at, it would be like, oh my God, there’s another 600 hours.
I think the great challenge was getting through it all. As the director of an archival doc, I’m not going through every hour of those 600 hours. I am being sent stuff that’s been extracted that helps uplift the anecdotes that I’m getting from the interview subjects, and vice versa, right? Something great happens in an interview. You go and try and find the archive that specifically speaks to and illustrates that.
But it was constantly being in that feedback loop of what we’re finding here uplifting what we’re getting in the interviews, and is what we’re getting out of these interview subjects able to be supported by the archive that we do have? Because you don’t want someone to tell a story that’s so great and then have nothing to show.
Hartmann: One of the biggest practical challenges was that we found, as Ally referenced, 600 hours of new footage about halfway through the film. We thought we knew what we had to tell the story, and then suddenly there was this enormous influx of material that no one had seen before, that was not digitized, that we had to go through.
The other thing too is [that] this is an enormous event with all of these different amazing artists involved. Figuring out how to represent the breadth of voices there that performed the crew, the audience. With a documentary budget? How do you get the breadth of interviews that you need to make sure that it’s fully representing that experience? We had to be really strategic about that.
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