The Indigo Girls (Amy Ray and Emily Saliers) will be the subject of a feature documentary from director Alexandria Bombach and Multitude Films.
The film will follow the legendary folk duo using never-before-seen archival footage from Ray and Saliers, as well as vérité footage shot during the production of their latest studio album, Look Long, to be released May 22. The project also marks the first documentary about Ray and Saliers and the first time they have allowed a film director to capture their creative process.
“Indigo Girls are unlike any other band, they mean so much to their fans, and I’m not the first to say their music changed my life. I think a film about these two incredible women is needed right now. I know if it already existed, I’d be watching it,” Bombach said in a statement.
Bombach won the 2018 best documentary director prize at Sundance for On Her Shoulders, a doc that follows Nadia Murad’s worldwide campaign for assistance to Yazidi refugees. Her upcoming film about the Grammy-winning Indigo Girls and their 30-year music career is targeting an early 2021 completion.
Kathlyn Horan, a longtime collaborator with the folk rock band and Multitude Films founder Jessica Devaney are producing the film and Impact Partners is financing. The press-shy Indigo Girls have offered up their video archive, including tapes and film reels captured mostly by Ray and her father, for the film.
The documentary will bridge from small bar gigs in the early ’80s to late-night TV appearances by the Indigo Girls and then to nonstop touring in the early ’90s — with a focus on Ray and Saliers’ songwriting and storytelling over a generation with hits like “Closer to Fine” and “Power of Two.”
“I was so impressed by Alexandria Bombach’s exceptional documentary On Her Shoulders, and knew that she would bring her singular visual style and strong moral compass to the story of this incredible duo of musicians,” Impact Partners executive director Jenny Raskin added in her own statement.
Impact Partners has funded earlier documentaries like Icarus, which took home the 2018 Oscar for best documentary feature, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and The Eagle Huntress.
