Universal Language

Canadian director Matthew Rankin pays homage to the masters of Iranian cinema with his super stylish and satisfyingly strange award-winner.

We’re in present-day Winnipeg, but things look more like post-revolution Tehran – and both French and English have given way to Farsi.

A disillusioned teacher arrives late to school only to reprimand a student for arriving moments after him. On the way home from school, two students find a banknote frozen in the icy path, setting them forth on a mission to break it free. Meanwhile, a filmmaker (played by director Matthew Rankin) moves back to the city to find that another man has taken his place.

Welcome to Winnipeg: “one great city.”

Curator’s Note

After paying homage to fellow Winnipeggers including Guy Maddin and John Paizs in his debut feature The Twentieth Century (2019), Matthew Rankin’s follow-up film shifts his adoring gaze further afield to Iran, taking inspiration from the Iranian New Wave. The vivid colours of his first film are traded for fifty shades of beige in this wildly revisionist and often hilarious view of his hometown, Winnipeg.

Universal Language premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, where it received the inaugural Audience Award. The film also won the Bright Horizons award at MIFF.

– Reece Goodwin, Curator (Film & TV)