John! Paul! George! Ringo! In the summer of 1965, it was all about the Beatles, readying for their gig at New York’s Shea Stadium. But “Twst – Things We Said Today,” premiering at the Venice Film Festival, is not another “pop-music documentary.” The film premieres an exclusive clip below.

“It just doesn’t interest me as a genre. Instead, I wanted to capture what was in the air back then. That generation wasn’t politized yet and the social rights movement was only starting,” director Andrei Ujică says.

He couldn’t help but be fascinated by the frenzy of Beatlemania, however, sweeping the nation.

“Music has the power to create ecstatic feelings. The Beatles weren’t the first – before, people talked about ‘Lisztomania’ [directed toward Hungarian composer Franz Liszt] and when Sinatra was singing, women would faint by the rows,” Ujică says.

“Because of new technology, the Beatles could reach a much bigger audience,...