Art is where you find it, they say. Filmmaker Anthony Sherin found it right outside his window on a winter morning in New York City. It was an old piano, abandoned on the sidewalk. No one who walked by, it seemed, could resist the mysterious pull of the beat-up instrument.

“I was mesmerized by the pattern that emerged,” Sherin writes in the New York Times. “Passers-by would slow, stop and play. Some played well. All day long they collected and dispersed, and into the night they measured, shoved and deliberated the piano’s fate.”

For 24 hours, Sherin shot still photos of the activity around the piano and, remarkably, documented a moving tale with a beginning, a middle and an end. A friend of Sherin’s created a sad, beautiful piano piece for the film, and the result is a surprising little gem. Be sure to watch it all the way to the end.