IT’S ONLY LIFE AFTER ALL

Amy Ray and Emily Saliers are the Indigo Girls: a folk-rock duo for forty years, songwriters, activists – and, for several generations of fans, proof that one can accept oneself. The road there led through a music industry that had no pigeonhole for two queer women with guitars: misogyny, homophobia, mockery of anything that did not fit the image of the female pop star. Alexandria Bombach weaves forty years of home videos, archive material and present-day observation into a portrait of two friends who never expected to become famous. “It’s Only Life After All” is a documentary from the USA from 2023.

The US director Alexandria Bombach handled direction, cinematography, editing and production herself. The plan had been a tour documentary; the pandemic forced a different film, built from around a thousand hours of material and candid conversations that spare nothing. It premiered in Sundance in January 2023, followed by South by Southwest and Tribeca; Oscilloscope brought the film to US cinemas in 2024. It was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2023.