The film takes fans inside the duo’s One to One benefit concerts
The HBO Original documentary One to One: John & Yoko, directed by Academy Award winner Kevin Macdonald (HBO’s One Day in September), debuts on Friday, November 14th at 8 pm ET/PT on HBO and will be available to stream on HBO Max. The film screened to critical acclaim at multiple film festivals, including Venice, Telluride, and Sundance.
A rare and revelatory inside look at John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s first year in New York City in the early 1970s, the documentary delivers an immersive, cinematic experience that brings to life a chapter of explosive creativity and political activism in their lives.
By 1971, John and Yoko had just arrived in the United States. They lived in a tiny apartment in Greenwich Village and watched hours of American television. The film integrates a riotous mélange of television to conjure the era through what the two would have been seeing on the screen – the Vietnam War, “The Price is Right,” President Richard Nixon, Coca-Cola ads, Walter Cronkite, and “The Waltons.” As they experience a year of love and transformation in the U.S., the couple begins to change their approach to protest. This ultimately led to the “One to One” benefit concert, which they organized after seeing Geraldo Rivera’s exposé on child neglect and abuse at the Willowbrook State School.
On August 30, 1972, John performed at the One to One benefit concert at Madison Square Garden – his only full-length show after leaving The Beatles. Footage of this electrifying performance from John and Yoko, along with The Elephant’s Memory Band, has been restored for the documentary and is interwoven throughout the film, along with other never-before-seen material.
Featuring music newly remixed and produced by Sean Ono Lennon, the documentary takes that legendary musical event and uses it as the starting point to explore 18 defining months in the lives of John and Yoko. Filmed in a meticulously faithful reproduction of the duo’s New York City apartment, One to One: John & Yoko offers a bold new take on a seminal time in the lives of two iconic artists and how their work continues to resonate today.
