The first film in what is known as Kiarostami’s sublime Koker Trilogy—three films that take place around the northern Iranian village of that name—takes a simple premise (a boy searching for a classmate to return his notebook to him) and transforms it into a miraculously sensitive and profound child’s-eye adventure of the everyday. As our young hero zigzags determinedly from place to place, aided (and sometimes misdirected) by those he encounters, his quest becomes both a revealing portrait of Iranian society and a touching parable about the meaning of personal responsibility. Shot through with all the wonder, beauty, tension, and mystery one day can contain, Where Is the Friend’s House? established Kiarostami’s reputation as one cinema’s most sensitive and profound humanists.