Overview

Lemons are being passed around. Their juice relieves the burning in the mouth and nose. It is April 17, 2011, the last day of public revolt before the suppression of the Iraqi Spring. Amid the protesting crowd, breathing the air laced with tear gas, are two musicians: Hiwa K with his harmonica, Daroon Othman on the guitar. They play the movie score from "Once Upon a Time in the West", that alarming melody of two dissonant notes, immediately recognizable to everyone in the streets of Sulaimany, Kurdistan. As Hiwa K plays the harmonica, the tear gas invades his airways; music and the political situation coincide in the performer’s body. He subsequently compiled video footage shot by others in the documentary This Lemon Tastes of Apple. The title ties the events of 2011 back to Saddam Hussein’s genocidal campaign against the Kurds in 1988. The gas that was used back then smelled of apples.