Band plays on, but not in Dublin

Opening in London today, The Band's Visit/Bikur Hatizmoret has been collecting kudos on the international festival circuit for months.

The debut film from director Eran Kolirin, it explores cross-cultural relations when an Egyptian police band is stranded in a remote Israeli town. However, with so many movies competing for screen space in Ireland, there are no plans to release it here.

The same fate has befallen two of last weekend's UK releases: The Lookout, a heist thriller featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Matthew Goode and marking the directing debut of Scott Frank, the writer of Out of Sight and Get Shorty; and Barry Levinson's Man of the Year, a comedy-thriller starring Robin Williams (in what Observer critic Philip French described as "his best work in years"), Laura Linney, Christopher Walken and Jeff Goldblum.

© 2007 The Irish Times