The Band’s Visit

In director Eran Kolirin’s debut feature, a small, uniformed Egyptian police band becomes lost in rural Israel on their way to performing at a concert. They unexpectedly encounter not only tensions and friendships with the townspeople who take them in for the night, but valuable lessons as well.

Invited to perform at the opening of an Israeli cultural centre, the immaculately pressed Alexandria Ceremonial Police Band arrive at the airport only to find that their hosts are nowhere in sight. Their Plan B is to take a bus, but they head in the wrong direction, led by conductor Tewfiq (Sasson Gabai). Stranded in a tiny Israeli desert town, they reluctantly decide to stay the night until the next bus arrives in the morning. Through the connections they forge, the band members and the villagers find their cultural assumptions shaken – with one especially memorable scene taking place in a roller disco.

The Band’s Visit is good-natured and warm while avoiding sentimentality. While refusing to glorify the past, Kolirin clearly yearns for a less mediated time when simpler pleasures – a shared meal, a good tune, an open door – had the potential to bring people together.

Dimitri Eipides, Toronto Film Festival Programme