IDFA in Groningen 2024
One to One: John & Yoko
Cinema Forum Groningen
Nieuwe Markt 1, 9712KN GroningenThrough historical TV and audio clips, this creative visual collage guides you through an era when John Lennon and Yoko Ono were fighting for a better world in their own unique way. Colorful, musical, moving and unexpectedly topical.
In the New York of 1971-72, John Lennon and Yoko Ono fought for a better world in their own unique way. For eighteen months they stayed in an apartment in Greenwich Village, where they met like-minded people and watched a lot of TV: “A window to the world,” according to Lennon. For the film, the apartment was recreated, making it seem as if you were sitting with the duo in front of the TV. Through the picture tube, the world of the time passes by in rapid succession. The news flashes, with the Vietnam War as the common thread, excerpts from talk shows, commercials and feature films make the 1970s suddenly seem very close.
Of particular note are the never-before-seen home videos of Lennon and Ono and the telephone conversations, depicted as contemporary WhatsApp conversations. The impact of frequent TV viewing leads to the successful benefit concert One to One for children with physical and mental disabilities. The two shows on Aug. 30, 1972 would be Lennon's only lengthy appearances between the last scheduled Beatles concert in 1966 and his death in 1980. A colorful, musical, moving and disconcertingly topical pictorial journey through a particularly turbulent time.