Main Cast : Noah Taylor - Simon
Rutger Hauer - The Squire, Count Albrecht
Ian Holm - Sirius/Boris/The Head
Stuart Townsend - Dovid
Embeth Davidtz - Leah
Sean McGinley - Maximillian Hase
Amanda Ryan - Sarah
Terence Rigby - Bratislav
Jim Dunk - Saul
Ursula Jones - Rebecca
David de Keyser - Rabbi
Ken Dury - Priest
Tom Fisher - Thomas
Screenplay:
Ben Hopkins
Awards and Nominations: 1999 - Catalonian (Sitges) International Film Festival Awards as Best Actor and Best Director
1999 - Catalonian (Sitges) International Film Festival Award Nomination as Best Film
1999 - Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear Award Nomination as Best Director
1999 - Camerimage Festival Golden Frog Award Nomination as Best Cinematographer
1999 - Molodist International Film Festival Award Nomination as Best Full-Length Fiction Film
2000 - British Independent Film Awards, Douglas Hickox Award Nomination as Best Director 2001 - Estepona Film Festival, Best Director, Best Film and Best Photography Awards, 2001.
Plot: Simon Magus is the poignant and magical tale of an outcast called Simon, who is treated with a mixture of fear, suspicion and guarded affection by the Jewish and Christian community of a village in 19th century Silesia.
It is also the story of the village itself, decaying now that the railway has arrived, passing the village by, taking away all its trade and threatening its future.
Simon has visions and strange dreams - for some villagers he is a harmless idiot, to others he is a magician in league with the devil himself.
The crisis comes in the battle to build a railway station and save the village.
Maximillian Hase, rich, ruthless and determined to succeed, uses Simon's feelings of isolation to his own ends, employing him as a spy.
Count Albrecht, a sensitive and lonely man with a passion for poetry, must be persuaded to allow the station to be built on his own land.
Dovid, a poor young Jew, realises that an appreciation of poetry is the way to succeed in the railway station bid.
Only the city educated Sarah from the Jewish community shares this passion for poetry, but she and the Count have never yet spoken. Dovid enlists Sarah's help to secure his bid.
Simon is seduced by Hase's bribes and is unwittingly playing a critical role in the battle for the railway.
