PERSIAN LESSONS

Q&A IN PERSON with director Vadim Perelman (House Of Sand and Fog)

“Persian Lessons is easily the pick: it’s a hugely compelling, highly original Holocaust drama” Daily Mail

Audience Awards – Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, Denver Jewish Film Festival

SYNOPSIS: Gilles, a young Jewish Belgian man, is arrested in 1942 by the SS and sent to a concentration camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but then Gilles is assigned a seemingly untenable mission: to teach Persian to Koch, the Nazi officer in charge of the camp’s kitchen, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Persia (Iran) once the war is over. Gilles finds himself having to teach a language he doesn’t know, word by word.

As the unusual relationship between the two men begins to incite jealousy and suspicion, Gilles becomes acutely aware that one false move could expose his swindle and get him killed.

Directed by Vadim Perelman (House Of Sand And Fog)

Stars Lars Eidinger, “Never Look Away”

2020/ German, French, Persian with ENG ST/ 127 min