Instruments of a Beating Heart

1/23/2025

Yikes but the amount of clutter kids take to school these days! We join a group of first year primary school, mask-wearing, children who are tasked with performing their own version of Beethoven's instantly recognisable "Ode to Joy". There's going to be a series of auditions and they are going to test these youngsters as they not only have to have some competence to play the big drum, cymbal. tambourine etc, but to have the confidence to engage in this whole selection process - one where they cannot all win. It's Ayame who is desperate for one such honour, but can she overcome her own nerves and her fellow students to make the grade? The kids seem perfectly oblivious to the presence of the camera as they playfully and naturally compete. There are teary moments, fretful ones and there's the