Simon and The Oaks

Wowing audiences in Sweden – where it was the first film in history to receive a total of 13 Guldbagge Award nominations (the ‘Swedish Oscars’) – Simon and The Oaks is a potent story about the treatment of Jews in Sweden in World War II as seen from a gentile perspective.

Alienated from his working-class family, Simon Larsson longs for a life of intellectual pursuits usually reserved for those from an upper-class backround. After convincing his father to send him to a prestigious grammar school, he meets Isak, a Jewish boy enduring bullying on a daily basis from his anti-Semitic classmates while also dealing with the arrival of Nazis in their community. Simon and Isak’s lives continue to entwine in unexpected ways across the course of a further 25 years.

This heartfelt, coming-of-age parable is based on the popular Swedish novel by Marianne Fredriksson.

“Impressively staged, well performed and rich in melodrama” Screendaily