New US Trailer for ‘Persian Lessons’ WWII Drama Featuring Lars Eidinger
by Alex Billington
May 23, 2023
Source: YouTube
“You just make sure the murderers eat well.” Cohen Media Group has revealed another official US trailer for the German WWII drama Persian Lessons, made by Ukrainian filmmaker Vadim Perelman. This first premiered back in 2020 just before the pandemic at the Berlin Film Festival, before getting lost in all the shutdowns. It played at various fests over the next few years, and opened in Germany in late 2020 already. The US release has finally been set – over three years later – for this June in select theaters. Gilles (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) is arrested by Nazis alongside other Jews and sent to a 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 Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to the Head of Camp Koch. Through an ingenious trick, he manages to survive by inventing words of “Farsi” every day and teaching them to Koch. A harrowing story of survival during the Holocaust. The cast features Lars Eidinger as Koch, Jonas Nay, David Schütter, Alexander Beyer, Andreas Hofer, Leonie Benesch, and Luisa-Céline Gaffron. This looks like another harrowing film about survival, again showing how ruthless and evil the Nazis were.
Here’s the two official US trailers (+ poster) for Vadim Perelman’s Persian Lessons, direct from YouTube:
1942. Gilles (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), 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 Farsi to Koch (Lars Eidinger), the officer in charge of the camp’s kitchen, who dreams of opening a German restaurant in 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. Persian Lessons, also known as Persischstunden in German, is directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Vadim Perelman, director of House of Sand and Fog, The Life Before Her Eyes, Yolki 5, and Buy Me previously. The screenplay is written by Ilya Tsofin, based on the novella by Wolfgang Kohlhaase. This premiered at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, and it also played at the 2021 Philadelphia Film Festival. Cohen Media will debut Persian Lessons in select US theaters starting on June 9th, 2023. For more details, visit their official site.
