Interview with Eran Kolirin, writer/director of The Band’s Visit

The film opens locally on Feb. 29.

by John P. Meyer

I sat down with director/writer Eran Kolirin for a brief discussion about his film The Band's Visit (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret), which was originally submitted by Israel to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences as their official entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category for this year's Oscars.

Which seems perfectly reasonable: much of the spoken dialog is in either Arabic or Hebrew (accompanied by English subtitles), but in instances where Egyptian band members and Israeli citizens speak to each other, they do so in English. It turns out some drone at the Academy put a stopwatch on the dialog and discovered that more than 50% of it over the course of the film takes place in English, thereby invalidating the movie from consideration in the Foreign Language category. Sheesh.

This is a real shame, because from what I can tell The Band's Visit would have been a worthy contender for the Oscar. You'll be able to judge for yourself (and read my review of the film) when it premieres here at the Dallas and Plano Angelikas on Feb. 22.

Since we conducted our interview in the ground floor cafe at the Angelika - which has the acoustics of a kettle drum - you will hear quite a bit of background stomping and external conversational buzz occurring over the course of our 15-minute conversation. Sorry about that.

Highlights of our discussion:

* Eran thinks directing is easier than writing

* His father was a film editor, which got him interested in filmmaking to begin with.

* He feels that, with globalization, we are losing something essential from the standpoint of culture

* The "warm wind of Dallas" reminds him a bit of the Israeli desert

* Although his hectic promotional tour hasn't allowed him much time to get a feel for North Texas or take in too many sights, he did get within rifle range at one point of the Sixth Floor Museum.

* He finally got to see No Country for Old Men on Sunday evening after a special screening of his own film, and he really enjoyed it; thinks the Coens are back to "doing things they are good at."