Persian Lessons (2020)
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Country:
Russia, Germany, Belarus
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Duration:
127 min
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- Type:
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Genre:
drama, war
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Director:
Vadim Perelman
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Producer:
Ilya Stewart, Timur Bekmambetov
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Cast:
Nahuel Perez Biscayart, Lars Eidinger, Jonas Nay, David Schutter
About film
This is a powerful film about the Holocaust and the unexpected escape from this global catastrophe. It is not based on any real story — everything in Persian Lessons is made up by its screenwriter Ilja Zofin, who invented an unexpected memorial and linguistic collision. A young Jewish man Gilles (played by Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) is brought to a concentration camp, and as his last hope, he lies that he is Persian and shouldn’t be jailed. Luckily for him, it turns out that the SS officer (Lars Eidinger, a brilliant German artist) wants to learn Farsi. Gilles has to make up the fake version of a language, and he uses the names of Nazi victims as his lexical foundation for it. This is an excellently made co-production which was filmed in Belarus.
Rewards and nominations
- Transatlantyk Festival: Lodz 2020 — Best Film
- Valladolid International Film Festival 2020 — Best Editing; nominee: Best Film
- Beijing International Film Festival 2020 — nominee: Best Film
- 70th Berlinale Special Gala — Official Selection
Director
Vadim Perelman is an American-Canadian director, screenwriter, and producer of Ukrainian origin. His filmmaking debut, House of Sand and Fog, received three Academy Award Nominations. He won TEFI Award for his television show Adultery. The world premiere of Perelman’s film Persian Lessons took place at the Berlin Film Festival. It was long-listed for the European Film Awards and entered the international feature film Oscar race representing Belarus, but was removed from consideration.
Along with
- Category:
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Speaker:
Vadim Perelman
Along with
- Category:
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Speaker:
Vadim Perelman
Trailer
Director
Vadim Perelman is an American-Canadian director, screenwriter, and producer of Ukrainian origin. His filmmaking debut, House of Sand and Fog, received three Academy Award Nominations. He won TEFI Award for his television show Adultery. The world premiere of Perelman’s film Persian Lessons took place at the Berlin Film Festival. It was long-listed for the European Film Awards and entered the international feature film Oscar race representing Belarus, but was removed from consideration.
