Paul Is Dead (2001)

Synopsis of Paul Is Dead

A teenager discovers a startling revelation about his favorite band -- but does so nearly 20 years after the rest of the world in this bright comedy. In the mid-1980s, Tobias (Sebastian Schmidtke) is a teenager growing up in a small, sleepy German town. Tobias' greatest passion in life is rock & roll, and his favorite radio show is a weekly series that accompanies highlights from the Beatles' back catalog with bits of history and trivia about the band. One week, the host offers a prize to whomever can identify what John Lennon is mumbling at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever," and a salesman at a local record store tells Tobias that John is saying "I buried Paul." Tobias and his best friend Helmut (Martin Reinhold) start pondering the implications of this statement, and Tobias comes to the conclusion that Paul McCartney was killed, an imposter took over so the band could continue, and his bandmates left clues in their music and on their album covers to let loyal fans know about the tragedy. Tobias and Helmut are, however, entirely unaware of the "Paul is dead" rumor that ran rampant among Beatles fans in the late 1960s, in which many people came to the same false conclusion, and soon the two boys are obsessed with finding out the truth about Paul's death, as well as bringing his murderer to justice. Paul Is Dead features a host of Beatles tunes on its soundtrack, and was warmly received in its North American premiere at the 2001 Slamdance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Producer(s):

Maria Kopf, Stefan Arndt

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