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A Jewish Prisoner Pretends to Know Farsi for His Survival in Exclusive Trailer for Persian Lessons

Cohen Media Group will open Vadim Perelman’s latest on June 9.

Persian Lessons
Photo: Cohen Media Group

In BPM (Beats Per Minute), Robin Campillo found in Nahuel Pérez Biscayart a face and voice to communicate the by turns ecstatic and wrenching role of being an activist for ACT UP Paris during the early 1990s. Now, in House of Sand and Fog director Vadim Perelman’s latest, Persian Lessons, the Argentine actor, who exudes an unwavering and mournful certainty whenever he’s on screen, has found another project worthy of his talent.

Persian Lessons concerns a young Belgian Jew named Gilles (Biscayart) who’s arrested in occupied France in 1942 by SS soldiers. On the way to a concentration camp in Germany, he avoids execution by swearing that he’s Persian. Subsequently, he’s tasked with teaching Farsi to the head of Camp Koch, Klaus Koch (Lars Eidinger), who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran after the war. What results is an intense game for survival, as Gilles pretends to know Farsi, inventing words that he then teaches to Koch. And while fighting to maintain his secret, he also copes with the guilt of enjoying privileges that aren’t shared by his fellow prisoners.

See the exclusive trailer below.

YouTube video

Cohen Media Group will open Persian Lessons on June 9.

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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