Bikur hatzimoret
An eight-member police band from Egypt has landed at Tel Aviv airport. They are supposed to play at the opening of a cultural centre in Petah Tikva. But no one is there to receive them. So they try to get to their destination themselves, even though the information they receive tends to lead to misunderstandings. Finally, they take the bus to Bet Hatikva, where they get off at a bus station in no man's land, loaded with wheeled suitcases and musical instruments.
“The Band’s Visit” unfolds its little but universal story with a lot of warmth and fine humour. It tells about different kinds of friendship and loneliness which people of different religions and political systems feel about the same way, and it tells about the universal call to care for other people.
For the Alexandrian Ceremonial Orchestra, a band from Egypt on a visit to Israel, ending up by mistake in a small village in the desert is a kind of catastrophe. But for them and the Israeli inhabitants – and, first of all, for the viewers of the film -, the day and the night they spend there becomes a strong, liberating and entertaining experience.