CAIRO FILM FESTIVAL REJECTS ISRAELI ENTRY

Cairo Film Festival Rejects Israeli Entry (AFP)
Organizers of the Cairo International Film Festival have loudly opposed an application by Eran Kolirin's "The Band's Visit," a fictional tale of an Egyptian police band that gets stranded in Israel.

The director said his movie, which won praise at the Munich and Cannes film festivals, sends a strong pro-peace message, but Soheir Abdel Kader, the festival's vice president, said: "It is out of the question that an Israeli film plays here."

A solid "anti-normalization" front exists in Egypt's cultural circles which reject collaboration or contact with Israeli artists or intellectuals, despite a peace deal signed between Egypt and Israel in 1979.