Written and directed by Amir Naderi and produced in 1974, ‘Harmonica’ is part of the Venice Classics program of the 80th Venice International Film Festival.

The film is set on the sun-drenched southern coast of Iran. It is about a young boy who receives a musical present from abroad. Fascinated and envious, his friends make him to the leader of the pack, as they compete for the privilege of holding the harmonica or even blowing a few notes. No one is more obsessed than Amiru, gentle and heavy-set, who seems willing to do anything to get close to the harmonica and its owner.

Mehdi Javadi, Abbas Pourahadi, Jomeh Vafabakhsh, Mahmoud Vafabakhsh, Shahla Darvishi, Masoud Goudarzi are the cast of the film.

Venice Classics is the section that since 2012 has presented world premiere screenings at the Venice Film Festival of a selection of the best restorations of film classics carried out over the past year by film archives, cultural institutions and production companies around the world.

‘One from the Heart’ by Francis Ford Coppola, ‘Profundo Carmesí’ (Deep Crimson) by Arturo Ripstein, ‘Andrei Rublev’ by Andrei Tarkovsky, ‘The Exorcist’ by William Friedkin, ‘King and Country’ by Joseph Losey, ‘Tini zabutych predkiv’ (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors) by Sergei Parajanov, and ‘Les Créatures (The Creatures) by Agnès Varda are among the films that will be screened at the Venice Classics program of the festival.

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