Occupied France, 1942. Gilles (Nahuel Pe´rez Biscayart) is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch (Lars Eidinger), who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching them to Koch. The particular relationship between the two men sparks the jealousy of other prisoners and SS guards towards Gilles. And while the suspicions of Koch grow every day, Gilles understands that he will not be able to keep his secret for much longer. An original and captivating story of a survivor.
Director Biography
Vadim Perelman was born in 1963 in Kiev, Ukraine, attended the University of Alberta and Ryerson University's School of Image Arts in Toronto. He directed ??House of Sand and Fog (2003), which was nominated for three Oscars, and The Life Before Her Eyes (2007), Yolki 5 (2016), Buy Me (2018) and Persian Lessons (2021).
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