Harmonica

The film is set on the southern coast of Iran. A young boy is given a harmonica sent from abroad, and every child in the neighbourhood fixes on the instrument. Curiosity and envy put him at the head of the pack overnight; the others compete for the privilege of holding it, or even of blowing a few notes, and start doing whatever he tells them. What began as play turns step by step into something else, a small and quite real relation of power. Amir Naderi tells it entirely inside the world of children, without letting any adult into the frame. The seventy five minute Iranian film was completed in 1974.