Alexandria Bombach named the 2024 Film in Action Recipient
Alexandria Bombach is the 2024 Film in Action Recipient
It’s Only Life After All will screen on opening night—Thursday, June 20, 7pm at the Wright Opera House
Film in Action Award Ceremony and Screening on Thursday, June 20—6:45pm at the Wright Opera House
Each year, the Ouray Inernational Film Festival confers a Film in Action Award to a filmmkaer whose work is helping to promote the pursuit of justice and compassionate living. We are extremely honored to confer the 2024 award to Alexandria Bombach. Her films are deeply human and tell stories of people who have overcome challenges with a determination to foster a more accepting society.
Alexandria Bombach
Alexandria Bombach is an award-winning cinematographer, editor and director from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her feature-length documentary ON HER SHOULDERS follows Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old Yazidi woman who survived genocide and sexual slavery committed by ISIS. Repeating her story to politicians and media, Nadia was thrust onto the world stage as the voice of her people. Away from the podium, she must navigate bureaucracy, fame, and people's good intentions. ON HER SHOULDERS premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival where Alexandria won Best Directing in the US Doc. Competition.
Her first feature-length documentary, FRAME BY FRAME, follows the lives of four Afghan photojournalists who are facing the realities of building Afghanistan's first free press. The film had its world premiere at SXSW 2015, went on to win more than 25 film festival awards and screened in front of the president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani. Alexandria continued her work in Afghanistan in 2016 directing the Pulitzer Center-supported New York Times Op-Doc, AFGHANISTAN BY CHOICE – an intertwining portrait of five Afghans who must weigh the costs of leaving or staying as the country's security deteriorates. In addition to her feature documentary work, Alexandria’s production company RED REEL has been producing award-winning, character-driven stories since 2009.
Indigo Girls: It’s Only Life After All
“The rare confessional rockumentary that envelops you like a soft blanket.”
—THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
At OIFF 2024, we are honored to screen Bombach’s newest film It’s Only Life After All. With forty years of making music as the iconic folk-rock band Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have made their mark as musicians, songwriters, and dedicated activists. They have represented radical self-acceptance to many, leading multiple generations of fans to say, “the Indigo Girls saved my life.” Still, Amy and Emily battled misogyny, homophobia, and a harsh cultural climate chastising them for not fitting into a female pop star mold. With joy, humor, and heart-warming earnestness, Sundance award-winning director Alexandria Bombach brings us into a contemporary conversation with Amy and Emily—alongside decades of the band’s home movies and intimate present-day verité.
Stay after the screening for a Q&A with director Alexandria Bombach.