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 Lenon to do an interview about peace. 45 years later, Levitan produced a film about it. And now – in this time of period of shocking violence, corruption, poverty and ongoing war – Lennon’s words about peace and war ring as just as true as they did back in the ’60s.

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.