Award-winning filmmaker Erik Nelson takes us back to one extraordinary week in
American counter-culture. Beginning on February 14th, 1972, the revolution was televised. DAYTME REVOLUTION shines a bright and beautiful light on the week that John Lennon and Yoko Ono descended upon a Philadelphia broadcasting studio to co-host the iconic Mike Douglas Show, at the time the most popular show on daytime television with an audience of 40 million viewers a week. What followed was five unforgettable episodes of television, with Lennon and Ono at the helm
and Douglas bravely keeping the show on track. Acting as both producers and hosts, Lennon and Ono handpicked their guests, including controversial choices like Yippie founder Jerry Rubin and Black Panther Chairman Bobby Seale, as well as political activist Ralph Nader and comic truth teller George Carlin. Their version of daytime TV was a radical take on the traditional
format, incorporating candid Q&A sessions with their transfixed audience, conversations about current issues like police violence and women’s liberation, conceptual art events, and one-of-a-kind musical performances, including a unique duet with Lennon and Chuck Berry and a poignant rendition of Lennon’s “Imagine.” A document of the past that speaks to our turbulent present, Daytime Revolution is a time capsule reminding us of art’s power to break down barriers, and the bravery of two artists
who never took the easy way out as they fought for their vision of a better world. Directed by Emmy and IDA Award-winning filmmaker Erik Nelson (Encounters At The End Of The World, Apocalypse ’45) with creative consultation from Yoko Ono and Sean Ono Lennon, Daytime Revolution features archival footage from each of the five episodes as well as interviews with six of the original guests, all reconstructing the music, the magic, and the behind-the-scenes madness of this unprecedented and historic week of television.
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For more go to: kinolorber.com/daytime-revolution
DAYTIME REVOLUTION opens on October 9th as a special cinema event timed to John Lennon’s 84th birthday, with screenings in over 50 cities nationwide, including New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, Washington D.C., and many more. See the full list of cities here.
About the filmmaker – ERIK NELSON | Director Multiple Emmy and IDA award winning filmmaker Erik Nelson has produced and directed a wide range of feature documentaries for his company “Creative Differences”. These range from producing four films with Werner Herzog (“Grizzly Man”, “Cave Of Forgotten Dreams”, “Into The Abyss” and their Oscar nominated “Encounters At The End Of The World”), to directing “Dreams With Sharp Teeth” (2008) a biographical look at iconoclastic writer Harlan Ellison. Nelson’s three most recent films, “A Gray State” (2017), a harrowing true crime look at the madness inducing culture of conspiracy, and the immersive World War II documentaries “The Cold Blue” (2019) and “Apocalypse ’45” (2021) all demonstrate the director’s range and ability to weave a provocative story out of exquisitely restored archive footage.
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“It is touching now to witness the faith with which so many in 1972 assumed war, poverty, sexism, consumerism and so forth must inevitably crumble before humanity’s newly evolved higher consciousness…” – Dennis Harvey, 48 Hills
“This recap of a unique and deeply sincere bid to demystify utopian ideals for the conservative masses using the platform of popular television offers a fascinating glimpse into a very different period in this country’s past.” – David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
“What IS remarkable, and kind of awesome, is that these confabs were beamed directly into the living rooms of some 40 million Americans via a rather unlikely platform…” – Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times
“There was a charming ordinariness to it, no big woo that a Beatle had landed, a vibe he orchestrated. enjoyable, a time capsule, a portrait of a beloved artist. The Richard Nixon White House went to war with the couple two weeks after the broadcasts.” – Anne Brodie, What She Said