Adapted from Shamim Sarif’s short story The Reader, the film is set in post-War Oxford, England. Twenty year old American student Joseph Connor takes a job reading to an unconventional young woman, a blind English professor at Oxford University. Kate Graves is thirty, married to a wealthy war veteran. Her sharp wit and striking beauty find an unexpected soul mate in the shy, sensitive Joseph.

As in The Remains of the Day, the passion which grows between them is marked, but subtle. Their ages, cultures and circumstances may conspire to keep them apart, but Joseph forces Kate to look at the empty core of the life she has so determinedly built for herself, while she provides the young student and aspiring writer with the confidence and trust that he needs to believe in himself. A love story that transcends the usual coming-of-age conventions.

The Dreaming Spires is being structured as a British qualifying film.