A rock doc about a game-changing, God-do-miss-the-80s-or-what? punk-pop band
The greatest all-girl—no, make that all-woman—band of the 1980s emerged out of the LA punk scene. Australian-born director Allison Ellwood mixes abundant archival material and candid interviews with the band members to tell you everything worth knowing about the Go-Go’s. Evolving beyond their initial punk personas, they went on to write and play some of the defining pop songs of the decade. Taking on the male-dominated musical establishment with kick-arse verve and irrepressible enthusiasm they were an explosion of colour and attitude. As Variety notes they were “the first hugely popular female band who were their own fucking band.” Hits such as We’ve Got the Beat, Our Lips Are Sealed, and Vacation followed. After sinking to the top of the pop scene with too much fame, too many drugs, and too many MTV clips, they contemplate what it takes to be survivors and sisters in an industry that eats its young while they are still fresh.
Alison Ellwood
Alison Ellwood was born in 1961 in Australia. She began working in the American film industry as an editor, collaborating frequently with documentarian Alex Gibney, with whom she produced and edited Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005). She has worked extensively in television documentary, and her feature film directing credits include Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Cool Place (2011), History of the Eagles (2013), American Jihad (2017) and Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time (2020).
