Yury Pelyushonok

A primetime special celebrating The Beatles and exploring the lasting impact on pop music of Beatles innovations like stadium concerts, music videos, and the idea of rock album as art form. The filmmakers were provided rare, previously unseen footage from the Apple archives, and afforded complete access to their recorded music and film library.

In August 1962, director Leslie Woodhead made a two-minute film in Liverpool's Cavern Club with a raw and unrecorded group of rockers called the Beatles. He arranged their first live TV appearances on a local show in Manchester and watched as the Fab Four phenomenon swept the world. Twenty-five years later while making films in Russia, Woodhead became aware of how, even though they were never able to play in the Soviet Union, the Beatles' legend had soaked into the lives of a generation of kids. This film meets the Soviet Beatles generation and hears their stories about how the Fab Four changed their lives, including Putin's deputy premier Sergei Ivanov, who explains how the Beatles helped him learn English and showed him another life. (Storyville)