Persian Lessons

In 1942, Gilles (Nahuel Perez Biscayart), the son of a Belgian rabbi, falls into the hands of an SS firing squad in occupied France, but manages to save himself by pretending to be Persian thanks to a book of fairy tales he had previously acquired in a trade. This is because the commander of a nearby transit camp, Hauptsturmfuhrer Klaus Koch (Lars Eidinger) - who is planning to emigrate - wants to learn Persian, so he orders Gilles, who has been assigned to him, to teach him in his supposed native language. Unable to speak Persian, Gilles is forced to invent a fantasy language, rewriting the names of the camp inmates, a task to which Koch soon assigns him in addition to his daily kitchen duties. Gilles's ability to maintain his false identity is threatened not only by his increasing workload and the growing complexity of his invented language, but also by Rottenfuhrer Max Beyer (Jonas Nay), who has been suspicious of him from the start. Beyer conspires against the prisoner with Elsa Strumpf (Leonie Benesch), who has been demoted due to Gilles's promotion.