Marquee Series: Persian Lessons

OFFICIAL ENTRY TO THE ACADEMY AWARDS FOR BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

Belarus' official entry to the Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film and from Vadim Perelman, director of the internationally acclaimed film The House of Sand and Fog that received three Academy Award nominations. Gilles, a young Belgian man, is arrested by the SS alongside other Jews 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 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 invent 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.