#eran kolirin

[byneddiedingo]

Rinat Matatov, Shlomi Avraham, and Saleh Bakri in The Band's Visit (Eran Kolirin, 2007)

Cast: Sasson Gabal, Ronit Elkabetz, Saleh Bakri, Khalifa Natour, Uri Gavriel, Shlomi Avraham, Rinat Matatov, Hilla Sarjon. Ahuva Keren, Tomer Josef. Screenplay: Eran Kolirin. Cinematography: Shai Goldman. Film editing: Arik Leibovitch. Music: Habib Shadah.

The Band's Visit is a cats-and-dogs movie: a meeting of two supposedly antagonistic cultures, in which each side learns something from the confrontation. But it avoids formula by fresh performances and a wry directorial distancing. Eight members of a police force orchestra from Alexandria, Egypt, find themselves stranded in the Israeli desert because of a misunderstanding about the name of their destination. They are supposed to play at the opening of an Arab Cultural Center in Israel, but they get off the bus by the side of the highway, across from a small cafe. The owner of the cafe, Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), scoffs at the notion that they are there to play at a cultural center: "Here there is no Arab culture. Also, no Israeli culture. Here there is no culture at all." The bleak little town is mostly modern high-rise apartments and the "park" has neither grass nor trees. She discovers the source of the error -- they were supposed to go to a town whose name sounded similar -- and tells them that there's not another bus until the next morning. The stubborn, autocratic leader of the band, Tawfiq (Sasson Gabal), decides to set out on foot, and the other seven band members, dressed in light blue uniforms, follow until Haled (Saleh Bakri), a handsome young violinist, complains that they haven't eaten all day. Tawfiq blows his top and puts Haled on report, but when the other band members confess their hunger, relents and returns to the cafe, where Dina feeds them and suggests that she and some of the men who hang around the cafe can put them up for the night. And so the film tracks the experiences of these strangers in a strange land through the night. We learn, for example, why Tawfiq is such a sourpuss and why the clarinetist, Simon (Khalifa Natour), is blocked in his attempts to compose a concerto. The most charming and funny scene involves Haled, who has already been established as something of a ladies' man, who goes out as a fifth wheel with Ars (Tomer Josef) and Papi (Shlomi Avraham) on their double date. Papi is upset because he has been stuck with Yula (Rinat Matatov), whom he regards as depressing. But then Papi is a virgin with no experience of women, and Haled takes it on himself to show Papi the ropes. At a small roller disco, Papi and Haled, who don't know how to skate, are sidelined. Yula tries to get Papi out on the floor, but he rebuffs her. As closing time draws near, an attendant starts packing up the plastic chairs, and Yula, who is in tears, is forced to sit on a bench with Papi and Haled, who takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and hands it to Papi, who hands it to Yula. Then Haled takes a small airline liquor bottle out of his pocket, hands it to Papi, prompting him to offer Yula a drink. She accepts and Papi returns the bottle to Haled after both have drunk from it. Then Haled places his hand on Papi's knee as a suggestion that he follow suit with Yula. Then he begins to caress Papi's knee as another suggestion. Finally, when Yula puts her hand on Papi's, Papi puts his hand on Haled's. Haled removes it: lesson over. This long single take is characteristic of director Eran Kolirin's sly style throughout the film, which was a huge hit in Israel and would have been that country's Oscar nominee for best foreign language film except that it was ruled ineligible because half of the dialogue is in English -- the language the Egyptians and Israelis use to communicate with one another. 

[shelley-sackett]

Huntington, SpeakEasy’s Co-Production “The Band’s Visit” Serves Up A Sublime Slice of Life

The cast of “The Band’s Visit” at the Huntington. Photo by T Charles Erickson “The Band’s Visit” — Music and Lyrics by David Yazbek. Book by Itamar Moses. Based on the Screenplay by Eran Kolirin. Directed by Paul Daigneault; Choreography by Daniel Pelzig. Music Direction by José Delgado. Scenic Design by Wilson Chin and Jimmy Stubbs. Costume Design by Miranda Kau Giurleo. Lighting Design by Aja…

[andersonvision]

Let It Be Morning is a 2021 Israeli movie that explores the struggles of Palestinians living in a small village in the West Bank. Directed by Eran Kolirin and based on the novel by Sayed Kashua, the film is a hauntingly relevant portrayal of the daily realities of life in Palestine. Today, we will take a closer look at the movie and discuss its socio-political satire, unique cinematography, and World Cinema impact. I haven't read the novel, but I enjoy the movie. The movie centers around the story of Sami, a successful Arab-Israeli journalist living in Jerusalem. One morning, he decides to visit his hometown, a small village in the West Bank. However, when he arrives, he finds that the Israeli army has sealed off the village, and he is trapped there along with the other residents. As tensions rise and the situation becomes more and more dire, Sami begins to question his own identity and the choices he has made. One of the most striking aspects of Let It Be Morning is its cinematography. The movie was shot in a documentary-style, with a handheld camera and natural lighting. This gives the film a raw and authentic feel, and adds to its sense of urgency and immediacy. The use of close-ups and long takes also helps to immerse the viewer in the story and create a sense of claustrophobia. Another noteworthy aspect of the movie is its portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather than taking a political stance, the film focuses on the human experience of living in a conflict zone. It depicts the frustrations, fears, and hopes of ordinary people caught in the middle of a conflict they have little control over. This makes the movie not only an important commentary on the current situation in Palestine, but also a universal story about the human condition. Some last thoughts on the movie. Finally, Let It Be Morning is a movie that has the power to leave a lasting impact on its viewers. Its themes of identity, belonging, and the search for meaning in the face of adversity are universal and timeless. The movie also raises important questions about the role of media and the power of storytelling in shaping our understanding of the world around us. As such, it is a must-watch for anyone interested in cinema, social justice, or the human experience. Given the film's timing, Let It Be Morning has an interesting take on forced lockdowns being used to patrol human movement. Being trapped in an unexpected situation always produces crazy results. It's just that watching the movie really makes me want to check out the book. I'm sure having extra time and space to nail down the absurdity of the Palestinian situation makes the humor pop off more. But, the director gets the point across in under two hours. The Cohen Collection gives Let It Be Morning its best Blu-ray presentation. The Cohen Collection remains among the most reliable outlets for home video releases. Especially when it comes to arthouse movies and World Cinema titles. There aren't any special features on the Let It Be Morning disc. But, that's typical for a lower budgeted World Cinema film. The Blu-ray's A/V Quality is pretty sharp for a fairly recent Israeli movie. The 1080p transfer easily stands up to most American releases. However, it's a political tinged social drama. It's not like the lossless 5.1 master audio track had a ton to show off. But, it works. The Cohen Collection continues to mine those International favorites for American audiences. If that is your sort of thing, then check it out. Let It Be Morning is now available!

[ozdeg]

[moxyphinx]

Ronit Elkabetz as Dina in The Band’s Visit

[aliveandfullofjoy]

Earlier this quarantine, I posted my ten favorite new-to-me films from the first 70 films I watched since COVID hit. I just realized I added 70 more to the list (we love being furloughed). So uh, here are my ten favorite new-to-me films of this new batch of 70 (as of Monday, June 22, 2020). Again, I highly recommend them all and they're all readily available on various streaming platforms.

Malcolm X (dir. Spike Lee, 1992; USA)

The Band's Visit (dir. Eran Kolirin, 2007; Israel/France/USA)

Tea and Sympathy (dir. Vincente Minnelli, 1956; USA)

Ace in the Hole (dir. Billy Wilder, 1951; USA)

Eat Drink Man Woman (dir. Ang Lee, 1994; Taiwan/USA)

One Sings, the Other Doesn't (dir. Agnès Varda, 1977; France)

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (dir. George Miller, 1981; Australia)

Within Our Gates (dir. Oscar Micheaux, 1920; USA)

Like Father, Like Son (dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2013; Japan)

Pennies from Heaven (dir. Herbert Ross, 1981; USA)

[themovieworldaccordingtotps]

TPS’S 25 ADDITIONAL FAVORITE MOVIES OF ALL TIME (2020 Edition)

The Band’s Visit Director: Eran Kolirin Cast: Saleh Bakri, Ronit Elkabetz, Sasson Gabai, Uri Gavriel, Khalifa Natour, Rubi Moskovitz, Imad Jabarin, Hilla Sarjon, Shlomi Avraham, Tarak Kopty Best Moment: Tawfiq and Dina’s bonding moment

[howardhawkshollywoodannex]

The Band’s Visit (2007) was written and directed by Eran Kolirin, who was born in Holon, Israel.  Eran has 10 credits as a write and six as a director, from 1999 to 2016.  Most of his writing credits are on Israeli tv.  He began his directing career with 10 episodes of an Israeli tv series in 2001, then an Israeli tv movie in 2004 before The Band’s Visit.  His two later features, in 2011 and 2016 seem to have been ignored by American critics.

[mycinematheque]

[perry-tannenbaum]

Simmering Cauldrons in a Lonely Desert Town

Simmering Cauldrons in a Lonely Desert Town

Review: The Band’s Visit By Perry Tannenbaum

Loneliness. Isolation. Boredom. Stagnation. No, those aren’t the ways we think of the Middle East when all the newsclips we see splatter blood, anger, violence, terrorism, explosive devastation and mass migration in our faces. But in 2007, Israeli screenwriter and director Eran Kolirin explored a different side of the region in The Band’s Visit, a…

[awardseason]

2021 Cannes Film Festival — Lineup

COMPETITION “Ahed's Knee” OR “Ha’berech,” Nadav Lapid (Israel) “Annette,” Leos Carax (France) — OPENING NIGHT FILM “Benedetta,” Paul Verhoeven (Netherlands) “Bergman Island,” Mia Hansen-Løve (France) “Casablanca Beats,” Nabil Ayouch (Morocco) “Compartment No. 6” OR “Hytti Nro 6,” Juho Kuosmanen (Finland) “Drive My Car,” Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (France) “Everything Went Fine” OR “Tout s’est bien passé,” Francois Ozon (France) “Flag Day,” Sean Penn (U.S.) “France,” Bruno Dumont (France) “The French Dispatch,” Wes Anderson (U.S.) “A Hero,” Asghar Farhadi (Iran) “La fracture,” Catherine Corsini (France) “Lingui,” Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Chad) “Memoria,” Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand) “Nitram,” Justin Kurzel (Australia) “Paris, 13th District” OR “Les Olympiades,” Jacques Audiard (France) “Petrov’s Flu,” Kirill Serebrennikov (Russia) “Red Rocket,” Sean Baker (U.S.) “The Restless” OR “Les Intranquilles,” Joachim Lafosse (Belgium) “The Story of My Wife,” Ildikó Enyedi (Hungary) “Three Floors” OR “Tre Piani,” Nanni Moretti (Italy) “Titane,” Julia Ducournau (France) “The Worst Person in the World,” Joachim Trier (Norway) UN CERTAIN REGARD “After Yang,” Kogonada (U.S.) “Blue Bayou,” Justin Chon (U.S.) “Bonne Mère,” Hafsia Herzi (France) “Commitment Hasan,” Hasan Semih Kaplanoglu (Turkey) “Freda,” Gessica Généus (Haiti) “Gaey Wa’r,” Na Jiazuo (China) “Great Freedom,” Sebastian Meise (Austria) “House Arrest” OR “Delo,” Alexey German Jr. (Russia) “The Innocents,” Eskil Vogt (Norway) “La Civil,” Teodora Ana Mihai (Romania-Belgium) “Lamb,” Valdimar Jóhansson (Iceland) “Let There Be Morning,” Eran Kolirin (Israel) “Moneyboys,“ C.B. Yi (Austria) “Noche de Fuego,” Tatiana Huezo (Mexico) “Rehana Maryam Noor,” Abdullah Mohammad Saad (Bangladesh) “Unclenching the Fists,” Kira Kovalenko (Russia) “Un Monde,” Laura Wandel (Belgium) “Women Do Cry,” Mina Mileva and Vesela Kazakova (Bulgaria) OUT OF COMPETITION “Aline, the Voice of Love,” Valerie Lemercier (France) “Bac Nord,” Cédric Jimenez (France) “Emergency Declaration,” Han Jae-Rim (S. Korea “Peaceful” OR “De son vivant,” Emmanuelle Bercot (France) “Stillwater,” Tom McCarthy (U.S.) “The Velvet Underground,” Todd Haynes (U.S.) MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS “Bloody Oranges,” Jean-Christophe Meurisse (France)

SPECIAL SCREENINGS “Babi Yar. Context,” Sergei Loznitsa (Ukraine) “Black Notebooks,” Shlomi Elkabetz (Israel) “H6,” Yé Yé (France) “Mariner of the mountains” OR “O Marinheiro das Montanhas,” Karim Aïnouz (Brazil) “The Year of the Everlasting Storm,” Jafar Panahi (Iran), Anthony Chen (Singapore), Malik Vitthal (U.S.), Laura Poitras (U.S.), Dominga Sotomayor (Chile), David Lowery (U.S.) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand) CANNES PREMIERE “Cow,” Andrea Arnold (U.K.) “Deception” OR “Tromperie,” Arnaud Desplechin (France) “Evolution,” Kornél Mundruczo (Hungary) “Hold Me Tight,” Mathieu Almaric (France) “In Front of Your Face,” Hong Sang-soo (S. Korea) “Jane by Charlotte,” Charlotte Gainsbourg (France) “JFK Revisted: Through the Looking Glass,” Oliver Stone (U.S.) “Love Songs for Tough Guys,” Samuel Benchetrit (France) “Mothering Sunday,” Eva Husson (France) “Val,” Ting Poo and Leo Scott (U.S.)

The Closing Night film and a major blockbuster will be added to the line-up. (Variety)

The 74th Cannes Film Festival is set to take place on July 6-17 in Cannes, France.

[beatriceinmessina]

Musicals To Listen to If You Like ‘The Terror’

A.K.A. the musicals that give me serious Terror vibes.  The musicals that keep me going until I get my Terror musical that is six to eight hours long, co-written by Dave Malloy and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and stars them as Francis and James respectively.  

The Band’s Visit (music and lyrics by David Yazbek, book by Itamar Moses): Based on the 2007 film Bikur Ha-Tizmoret (written and directed by Eran Kolirin), The Band’s Visit tells the story of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, who are on their way from Egypt to perform in Petah Tikvah.  Due to a language mix-up, they end up in the desert town of Bet Hatikva, and have to stay the night until the next bus comes to take them to their planned destination.  The stories are familiar on a surface level, but it’s themes and subjects of TBV -- the forming of genuine connections in strange situations, loneliness, love, and just plain humanity -- that keep putting me in mind of The Terror.  The finale song, “Answer Me”, would fit right into the last two episodes, if you ask me.  (And listen to it anyway!  The music is beautiful.)

Hadestown (music, lyrics, and book by Anaïs Mitchell): A retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in a harsh world where the seasons are out of joint and people, at the mercy of the gods, frequently go hungry.  I won’t go into much more detail, since I’d rather people discover the musical themselves, but the unforgiving setting and sometimes fraught relationships (particularly between the gods Hades and Persephone) fit perfectly with The Terror.  “When the Chips are Down” and “Gone, I’m Gone” fit especially in my opinion.

Jesus Christ Superstar (music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Tim Rice): I’m convinced that The Terror is the JCS of period dramas.  They both have lots of men being tender with each other, tragedy, and the one man no one will listen to.  Every time I watch the first episodes I wait for “Heaven On Their Minds” and “Damned For All Time” and they never happen.  Also, if you’ve watched The Terror twenty times and need more men making anguished faces at each other, JCS has that in spades.  (I recommend the 1973 movie, where Carl Anderson as Judas runs around the desert singing of his anguish and pain and love and conflicting feelings the way the men of The Terror can’t because it sadly isn’t a musical yet.) 

[eyeliketwowatch]

The Band’s Visit - subtle charmer

One of those rare cases, where we see an interesting looking preview on one DVD and rent it based on nothing else. This one was a pleasant little surprise. Sometimes those you go into with no preconceived notions are the best kind of movie magic. Wrote this for facebook:

Quiet little charmer of a movie. Realistic and moving without resorting to pulling too hard on your heartstrings.

3.5 stars out of 5

Released 2007, First Viewing October 2008

[istfilmfest]

FESTİVAL GÜNLÜĞÜ #03 | 7 NİSAN 2017, CUMA

"Bu ruhumun filmi" / “This is a picture of my soul”

Please scroll down for English.

Eran Kolirin

“Dünya Festivallerinden” bölümünde yer alan Dağların Tepelerin Ardında, yönetmen Eran Kolirin’in katılımıyla gösterildi.  Bir ailenin bireylerinin sıkışmışlık hallerini inceleyen filmin isminin bir İsrail halk şarkısından esinlediğini belirten yönetmen, seyircilerden gelen soruları yanıtladı. Şiirsel bir dile ulaşmak için yer yer filmi gerçeklik düzleminden çıkarmayı denediğini söyleyen Kolirin, “bu ruhumun filmi” dedi. Yıllar geçtikçe içgüdüleriyle çalışmayı öğrendiğini söyleyen yönetmen, filmin görsel dilini de bu şekilde oluşturduğuna dikkat çekti ve oyuncularla çalışma şeklinin müzikal bir tempo kurmaya dayalı olduğunu belirtti. Filmin, birbirleriyle çatışan yuva, tutku ve iyilik kavramlarıyla ilgili olduğunu açıklayan yönetmen. Filmde aile bireylerinin işlediği suçlardan ceza almamalarının rahatsız edici bir his olduğunu vurgulayan Kolirin, “biz her ne kadar bu sessiz sinemada, huzur içinde film izliyor olsak da, şiddet ve savaş çok yakınımızda” diyerek sözlerine son verdi.

Dağların Tepelerin Ardında / Beyond the Mountains and Hills

The screening of Beyond the Mountains and Hills took place as part of “Best of the Fests” section with the participation of the director Eran Kolirin. Named after an Israeli folk song, the film examines a family’s sentiment of being trapped. During the Q&A session, Kolirin said that he occasionally tried to move the film away from the plane of reality in order to capture a poetic language, and then added: “This is a picture of my soul.” The director explained that over the years, he learned how to work with his instincts and that this is how he created the visual language of the film. He said that his working method with the actors is based on achieving a musical tempo after long practices. The director later explained that the film is about the conflicting concepts of home, passion and morality. Kolirin pointed that the fact that the wrongdoings of each family member going unpunished is a disturbing feeling and concluded that “even though we’re watching a film at peace inside this quiet cinema, war and violence are very much near us”

Eran Kolirin

Fotoğraflar / Photos: Doğancan Heperler