[Off Stage] The Band’s Visit
“Once, not long ago, a small Egyptian police band arrived in Israel. Not many remember this. It was not that important.”
The Alexandria Police Ceremonial Orchestra arrives in Israel at the request of the Arab Cultural Center in Peta Tikva to play at their grand opening. With the potential disbanding of the Orchestra, the stoic leader and conductor Colonel Tawfiq Zacharya (Sasson Gabai) is determined to make the trip a success and bring honor to the Orchestra. Despite his best efforts the band runs into problems immediately upon arrival. The band is stranded in a foreign land unable to reach anyone who could help them. Attempting to find transportation on their own, the Arabic/Hebrew language barrier mistakingly sends them to a small empty town in the Israeli desert called Betah Tikva and not the Petah Tikva that invited them to play. With no more buses until morning and no hotels in the town the band finds themselves marooned for the night dependent on the kindness of strangers. A group of Arab men stuck in an Israeli town provokes thoughts of conflict and turmoil. However we are shown that even in the midst of a problem as large as Israeli/Arabic conflict we are all cut from the same cloth and the emotions and personalities that make us who we are transcend political and religious boundaries....