Unabashed Sincerity: Lilith Fair Building a Mystery Film Review
Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery.
In 2023, St. Albert, Alberta-born and raised filmmaker Ally Pankiw (who is now based out of Toronto) brought her debut feature film, I Used To Be Funny starring Rachel Sennott, to the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF). I saw the screening at Eau Claire Cinemas (R.I.P. Eau Claire, gone but not forgotten) and the film, set in the Toronto stand-up scene with Sennott playing a comedian struggling with depression, was a bold and vivid statement that got a warm reception at the festival and it put Ally Pankiw on my radar.
Two years later, Ally Pankiw is back at CIFF and this time she is documenting one of the greatest music movements of the ’90s: Lilith Fair, which was started by the Queen of Halifax, Sarah McLachlan. I have been personally waiting practically my whole life for Lilith Fair to not only get this level of documentary treatment but also to finally get the respect it has always deserved. As yes, while Lilith Fair was a huge success as a festival in the late ’90s for the three years it ran, it was always the brunt of cheap jokes, since it was a women-led-and-run music festival. As Bonnie Raitt mentions in the documentary, she had been waiting for a festival like Lilith Fair for her entire life, without all of the macho posturing and ego-stroking that you get at typical male-run festivals. Jewel, whose multi-platinum rise dovetailed nicely with her touring at Lilith Fair, described it as thus: "One of the things I was most criticized for in my music was my sincerity. But I have to say when I sang for Lilith Fair, when I looked out in the audience, I saw unabashed sincerity."
Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (and if you can say the title of the film without singing “Building a Mystery” ala Sarah McLachlan you are a stronger person than I) documents the formation of the Lilith Fair festival, started by McLachlan and the heads of her label/management Nettwerk Music Group, and how it was started as a reaction to the music industry not giving female artists the same level of respect that men got. Pre-Lilith Fair, women were told by radio programmers that they can’t play female artists “back-to-back,” and how it was discouraged, a stunning and jawdropping statement. Another incredible quote from the film is when one of the Lilith Fair organizers were looking for an unnamed water company to sponsor them, the festival was turned down, the reason given that the water company “was focusing on a male audience.” WE ARE TALKING ABOUT WATER HERE!! The uphill battle and horrendous sexism that all of these incredible artists, like McLachlan, Suzanne Vega, Sheryl Crow, Liz Phair (who are all interviewed in the film with keen insights) faced will get you angry anew all these decades later.
At its core, Lilith Fair was a venue for people to come out and be themselves, to be as free and as different as they wanted to be where they would be bullied in other contexts in the late ’90s. Lilith Fair was a genuine safe space, in the truest sense, and the testimonials from people who attended (either via vintage camcorder footage or contemporary interviews filmed by Pankiw) made me tear up, and how the festival changed their lives. I personally see that with DIY arts spaces, of how people evolve getting to make their art in a safe space, so to have that same feeling in a multi-month cross North American tour, I can't begin to say how heartwarming and lovely it was to see it presented in the film.
One of the revelations in Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery is the amount of footage that was recorded from the period, both onstage and off, which will instantly transport you back to that time whether you were alive for it like I was or if you are like 2003-born Olivia Rodrigo (featured in the documentary) who reveres these artists and considers them her north star when she is making music. Do you want to see Bonnie Raitt getting down and dancing as Queen Latifah raps “Ladies First”? Do you want to see Sarah McLachlan flash Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders mid-performance, which makes Hynde fall over laughing? How about the treasure trove of artists who made their debuts performing on the side stage at Lilith Fair, including Mya, Christina Aguilera, Dido and Nelly Furtado? Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery has all of that and more.
Ally Pankiw brings so much love to this film, as she knows the importance of having Sarah McLachlan’s trust to finally properly tell the story of Lilith Fair and the change and progress it made. By the time McLachlan made the decision to wrap the tour after three years, radio finally was playing female artists back-to-back, and you can’t imagine the current landscape of the most exciting artists in popular music being female (whether it’s Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Boygenius or Lilith Fair-disciple Olivia Rodrigo) existing without McLachlan paving the way. The new interviews from fellow Lilith Fair artists like Sheryl Crow, Erykah Badu, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, reflecting back on the three years of Lilith Fair are wonderful, as they know they were part of something special, and they have tried to bring that same spirit of inclusivity in everything they have made ever since. It’s a genuine piece of not just Canadian music history, but music history as a whole, and the personal touch that Pankiw brings to it will make you wish to create a time machine to go back to one of the Lilith Fair dates in the ’90s (like the multiple times the festival came to McMahon Stadium!) to experience it for the first time, or relive the spirit again. Though really, we don’t need that time machine, as Pankiw has created that time machine for us with Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery.
Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery has a second screening at the Calgary International Film Festival on September 27. Tickets are available at www.ciffcalgary.ca. Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery is also streaming on CBC Gem.