The Band's Visit
- Ronit Elkabetz: Dina
- Sasson Gabai: Lieutenant - colonel Tawfiq Zacharya
- Shlomi Avraham: Papi
- Saleh Bakri: Khaled
- Uri Gavriel: Avrum
- Imad Jabarin: Major -general Abdel Azim Camal
- Ahuva Keren: Lea
The Band's Visit (Hebrew Original Title: Bikur ha - tizmoret, ביקור התזמורת, Arabic اللقاء الأخير, DMG al - Liqa ʾ al - Ahir ) is an Israeli film, published in 2007. It is the feature film debut of director and screenwriter Eran Kolirin.
Action
An Egyptian police orchestra of Alexandria is invited to a cultural festival in Israel. When the musicians arrive at the airport in Tel Aviv, but there is no one to take them in reception. Colonel Tawfiq Zacharya and his musicians decide to take the bus to the destination.
When buying a ticket, however, band member Khaled speaks destination from wrong ( Arabs can no hard "p" speech), and so the orchestra ends up in the sleepy provincial town of Beit Hatikva place in Petah Tikva. As the musicians inquire at Dina, the owner of a small restaurant, after the Arab Cultural Center, they realize that they are in the wrong place. Dina recognize their predicament and offers them to spend the night with him and two family friends.
The Egyptians and their Israeli hosts meet first with reluctance and fear of contact; due to cultural differences and language barriers, there is various, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic-comic misunderstandings. During the evening and night, however, arise in particular between the serious Tawfiq and the lively Dina intensive discussions and finally a friendly relationship. The next day, the orchestra departs to his actual destination.
Awards
The Band's Visit has received a number of national and international film awards and accolades. The Israeli Film Academy drew from the film with eight Ophir Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director and Best Actor. At the International Film Festival in Cannes, he received the Jury Award Coup de Coeur. Sasson Gabai was honored for his role as Colonel Tawfiq Zacharya with the European Film Awards. Other awards the film received at film festivals in Montreal, Sarajevo, Warsaw and Zurich.
The Band's Visit was filed as an official Israeli contribution to the Academy Awards in 2008 for Best Foreign Language Film. However AMPAS refused to do so, as English over Arabic and Hebrew dominates in the film.
Reception
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung described the film as " a series of magical sketches, a divertimento in a confined space " and a " sample on the humanity of the circumstances under which the peoples of the region have to get along ." The stranded in a no man's land, marked by nostalgia protagonists remind the reviewers of films by Aki Kaurismäki.
Taz raises " long, carefully composed shots " out and praises that the figures speak for themselves and not be broken down stereotypes.
The lexicon of the International film proclaims: " A melancholy comedy about the extremely tentative rapprochement between traditional ' enemy nations, which manages to push the political reservations in the background to tell the story of universal human problems, concerns, hopes and dreams. An extremely entschleunigter film that advertises on its quiet way for understanding and coexistence. "