Son of Saul

2015 Hungarian drama film directed by László Nemes

Film · TMDB

7.1

In the horror of 1944 Auschwitz, a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of his own people finds moral survival trying to save from the flames the body of a boy he takes for his son, seeking to give him a proper Jewish burial.

Released: 2015-06-11107 minDir: László NemesWar, Drama, ThrillerBudget: $1.0MBox office: $1.8M

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Cast

Géza Röhrig as Saul Ausländer
Levente Molnár as Abraham
Urs Rechn as Eli Biederman
Todd Charmont as Bearded Prisoner
Jerzy Walczak as Rabbi Frankel
Balázs Farkas as Saul's Son

Themes

prisoner
world war ii
son

~12 min read

Article

Son of Saul (Hungarian: Saul fia) is a 2015 Hungarian historical drama film directed by László Nemes, in his feature directorial debut, and co-written by Nemes and Clara Royer. It is set in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, and follows a day-and-a-half in the life of Saul Ausländer (played by Géza Röhrig), a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando.

The film premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix, and was later screened in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. The film won the award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards. It is the ninth Hungarian film to be nominated for the award, and the first since István Szabó's Hanussen in 1988. It is the second Hungarian film to win the award, the first being Szabó's Mephisto in 1981. It also won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, becoming the first Hungarian film to win the award.