Lilith Fair Music Documentary to Debut on Hulu in September

Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery, a new feature-length documentary about the groundbreaking music festival, will premiere on Sunday, Sept. 21, on Hulu, following its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.

From director Ally Pankiw, the film chronicles the story of the Lilith Fair music festival, which featured only women artists. It was started by Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan and her team in the late 1990s in opposition to systemic industry barriers that limited women from playing together on a concert bill and getting back-to-back airplay on the radio. The film is produced with the support of the original Lilith Fair founders: Sarah McLachlan, Terry McBride, Dan Fraser, and Marty Diamond.

The film 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 draws from more than 600 hours of never-before-seen archival footage, as well as new interviews and stories from fans, festival organizers and artists.

The documentary reunites and features interviews with original Lilith Fair artists Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Erykah Badu, Paula Cole, Jewel, Mýa, Natalie Merchant, Indigo Girls and Emmylou Harris and a new generation of artists who have carried the torch, including Brandi Carlile and Olivia Rodrigo, among others. 

Commissioned by CBC with the participation of the Canada Media Fund and the Rogers Group of Funds, Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery is produced by Dan Levy’s Not A Real Production Company and Elevation Pictures for ABC News Studios, and presented by White Horse Pictures in association with Epic Magazine. The film is produced by Levy and Christina Piovesan. Executive producers are Cassidy Hartmann, Nicholas Ferrall, Jeanne Elfant Festa, and Nigel Sinclair for White Horse; Noah Segal for Elevation Pictures; Jessica Hopper; Arthur Spector, Joshuah Bearman and Joshua Davis for Epic Magazine; Pankiw; Steve Cohen and Paula Froehle for Chicago Media Project; and Wayne Isaak. 

In addition to the documentary premiere this fall, McLachlan will launch her first studio album of new music in over a decade, “Better Broken” (Concord Records), on Sept. 19. McLachlan will also be touring with her band across Canada this fall. For more information, visit here.

Photo Credit: Shauna Gold