United Kingdom 2024, 100 min, English, Hebrew & English subtitles
On August 30, 1972, in Madison Square Garden, John Lennon made his first post-Beatles performance at the “One to One” charity concert, sharing the stage with Yoko Ono. The couple had relocated to the United States the year prior, settling into a small Greenwich Village apartment. It was an era marked by political and cultural upheaval in the US, and the film flits between its key moments, recreating the atmosphere through a montage of television broadcasts: the Vietnam War, the presidential elections, game shows, reports on the Attica prison riot, and commercials for everything from cereal to Coca-Cola. Against this backdrop, John and Yoko’s political consciousness took shape, leading them to engage in radical and progressive struggles and leverage their public status to champion subversive causes. Academy Award-winning director Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September, Life in a Day), in collaboration with Sam Rice-Edwards, has crafted a refreshing cinematic experience that features clips from that singular concert, recorded phone calls, home movies, and a remarkably accurate recreation of that New York apartment. The fascinating film uses the legendary concert as the starting point for a study of an intense 18-month period of creative work and activism in the lives of history’s most influential, sensitive, and insightful pair of artists.
Previous Festivals: Venice film festival, Telluride, IDFA, Sundance
