John Lennon on Peace (Toronto, 1969)

Way back in 1969, the Beatles' John Lennon was interviewed by a 14-year old young man in a Toronto hotel room, on the topic of peace. The audio recording has recently been revived, with professional direction and visuals, creating an incredibly vivid, short documentary.

The YouTube video caption describes how this project came together, and the players involved:

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon's every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit, and timeless message.

The results are, simply put, awesome.


Latest Videos



Latest Videos


Join the conversation Load comments

Latest in Film

The best movies at TIFF 2023

TIFF announces awards and People's Choice winner for 2023

9 movies that could win the People's Choice Award at TIFF 2023

Ethan Hawke took a night bus from NY to Toronto to get to his TIFF movie on time

The best and worst movies at TIFF 2023 so far

This is what opening weekend looked like at TIFF this year

People in Toronto share times they've randomly spotted the city in blockbuster movies

Toronto is turning a derelict building into an enormous outdoor movie screen