This heartwarming and poignant winner of the Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard prize is the mesmerizing and witty story of strangers in a strange land. On an ordinary day, the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra arrives in Israel from Egypt for a cultural event, only find there is no delegation to meet them, nor any arrangements to get to their destination of Petah Tiqva. When they find their own ride, they arrive instead at the remote town of Beit Hatikva. Stuck there until the next morning's bus, the band, led by the repressed Tawfiq Zacharaya, gets help from the worldly lunch owner, Dina, who offers to put them up for the night. As the band settles in as best it can, each of the members attempts to get along with the natives in their own way. What follows is a special night of quiet happenings and confessions as the band makes its own impact on the town and the town on them. Set against a breathtaking desert landscape, this cross-cultural comedy proves that getting lost is sometimes the best way to find yourself.
3 day rental • PG-13 • 87 mins. • Hebrew and Arabic with subtitles
“It's a small, profoundly satisfying movie that keeps echoing long after it's over.”
—
Boston Globe
“A heartfelt, wry and decidedly spry film.”
—
Empire Magazine
“Like no fish-out-of-water film in recent memory, it leaves you with the hope that these fish will find their way back to water, and maybe learn to share that puddle before the desert dries it up entirely.”
—
Orlando Sentinel
“Something marvelous happens as the filmmaker, in his first feature, expertly metes out small scenes of communication between people taught, for generations, to be wary of one another: This Band swings with the rhythms of hope.”
—
Entertainment Weekly
“What a charming, laugh-out-loud little gem this is.”
—
Little White Lies