News

Universal Language, the original and quietly funny Oscar-shortlisted Cannes and TIFF premiering feature by Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin debuts on one screen each in New York and LA. Chinese animated juggernaut Ne Zha 2 opens Stateside and Oscar Nominated Shorts are back for a 20th season. Sony Picture Classics’ Becoming Led Zeppelin expands to 1,039 locations from 369 Imax screens and IFC Films jumps Armand to 230 theaters from two. Oscar contenders continue to populate screens.

Oscilloscope’s Universal Language quite likes this window with the Academy Awards a few weeks away. In a crowded market, “this date is great. Once the ceremony comes and goes, there is a rotation of films out of theaters,” says theatrical distribution chief Andrew Carlin.

He calls Rankin a great actor and filmmaker with a particular sense of style and Universal Language a film with “a strangeness to it that defies classification” — a plus for Oscilloscope.

Rankin returned the compliment.

“Never in any part of my imagination would I have thought myself to be a representative of anything,” claimed Matthew Rankin, the co-writer and director of Universal Language, when asked about his film representing Canada in the Oscar race for best international feature. That expression didn’t indicate any doubts about the quality of the work. Rather, it was a nod to the irony of a film that deconstructs the idea of nations and borders being selected to compete in a race whose parameters were defined by those exact parameters.

While Universal Language might have missed an Oscar nomination, Rankin’s mode of empathetic and creative intercultural engagement is likelier to stand the test of time than the category’s putative frontrunner. His film blends the deadpan humor of Aki Kaurismäki with the formal playfulness of Abbas Kiarostami as it follows three stories that converge in a wintry setting that...

Universal Language could easily have overdosed on twee. Set in an alternate-universe Winnipeg where almost everyone is ethnically Iranian and speaks Farsi, it pays homage to films like Abbas Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s Home? and Jafar Panahi’s The White Balloon. Director Matthew Rankin himself plays a character sharing his name, who travels home from Montreal to Winnipeg following news of his mother’s sickness. His story intersects with two subplots: children Negin (Rojina Esmaeili) and Nazgol (Saba Vahedyousefi) find a 500-riel note buried under ice and look for an axe so they can chop it out while Massoud (co-writer Pirouz Nemati) leads a guided tour of Winnipeg parking lots and highways.

Although Universal Language is very witty, with TV-commercial parodies and absurdist touches, fundamentally it’s a deeply sad film. This is reflected in its look: during the dead of winter, Massoud leads tourists around Winnipeg’s beige and grey districts.

Rarely has a film synthesized a director’s career inspirations and personal history in more aesthetically unique and drolly entertaining fashion as director Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language. The Canadian-born Rankin’s influences range from Iranian cinema to American comedian Groucho Marx, and both find their way into this bizarre little gem, as do a number of surreal ideas and visual references. Rankin’s second feature is a gently unfolding oddity that mixes and matches time and place in ways that delight as much as they challenge.

And that’s no easy accomplishment. Universal Language contains visual quotes from directors such as Wes Anderson, Jacques Tati, fellow Winnipeg native Guy Maddin, and Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami, whose 1987 drama Where Is the Friend's House? is a touchstone here. But instead of being a prisoner to his cinematic role models, Rankin frees himself to put his own private-label stamp on a story...

Canada’s Oscar entry “Universal Language,” a critically acclaimed movie directed by Matthew Rankin, has been acquired by distributors in most major territories ahead of its North American premieres at Toronto and New York Film Festival.

Represented worldwide by Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever, the movie world premiered at this Cannes Directors’ Fortnight where it won the inaugural People’s Choice Award. Following Toronto and New York, the movie will go on to play at Fantastic Fest and Festival du Nouveau Cinema as the festival opener. “Universal Language” also won the Bright Horizons Best Film Award at the Melbourne International Film Festival.

“Universal Language” has been bought for France (Météore Films), Scandinavia (Njutafilms), Germany & Austria (Rapid Eye Movies), Switzerland (Outside The Box), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Cei (Universal Distribution), Japan (The Klockworx), China (DDDream), Taiwan (Hooray Films), Brazil (Belas Artes Grupo), Indonesia (Falcon Pictures) and India (Big Tree Entertainment). Benelux,...

On the heels of its world premiere at Cannes, Matthew Rankin’s comedy Universal Language has been named as Canada’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.

The film, written by Rankin, Pirouz Nemati and Ila Firouzabadi, will look to become the ninth in Canada’s history to be recognized in the category. Most recently representing the country was Kim Nguyen’s Rebelle in 2013.

As the appointed non-voting chair of the committee, Telefilm Canada organizes the annual pan-Canadian Selection Committee for Canada’s Oscar submission. The vote was determined by a group of industry organizations and guilds, as well as filmmakers and industry professionals appointed to represent organizations.

Related: Best International Feature Film Oscar Winners: Photo Gallery

Produced by Metafilms, Universal Language is set in winter, somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg, watching as Negin and Nazgol find a large sum of money frozen deep...

Following his Guy Maddin-influenced debut The Twentieth Century, Matthew Rankin has returned five years later with his follow-up. Universal Language, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and soon heads to TIFF, NYFF, and Fantastic Fest, marks quite an aesthetic pivot for the director, employing an Abbas-Kiarostami-meets-Wes-Anderson approach in telling a unique, Winnipeg-set tale. Now set for a February 2025 release from Oscilloscope, the first trailer has arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “In a mysterious and surreal interzone somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg, the lives of multiple characters interweave with each other in surprising and mysterious ways. Gradeschoolers Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen in the winter ice and try to claim it. Meanwhile, Massoud leads a group of increasingly-befuddled tourists through the monuments and historic sites of Winnipeg. Matthew quits his meaningless job in a Québecois government office and sets out upon an enigmatic journey to visit his mother.

There is nothing lost in translation when it comes to “The Twentieth Century” filmmaker Matthew Rankin’s surreal triptych comedy “Universal Language.”

The feature, which debuted at Cannes 2024 and was deemed an IndieWire Critic’s Pick before winning the Audience Award in Directors’ Fortnight, is written and directed by Rankin, who also stars as a version of himself. Rankin described the film in press notes as an “autobiographical hallucination” that led him to travel from his native Winnipeg to Tehran to find the cinematic auteurs he grew up watching. “Universal Language” is co-written by Pirouz Nemati and Ila Firouzabadi.

The official synopsis reads: “In a mysterious and surreal interzone somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg, the lives of multiple characters interweave with each other in surprising and mysterious ways. Grade-schoolers Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen in the winter ice and try to claim it. Meanwhile, Massoud leads...

After a relatively slow August, studios are finally starting to gear up for fall and winter, the more awards-focused seasons. Preparing for its theatrical run following its Cannes premiere this past May, Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin's weird and wonderful-looking Universal Language fits squarely into that latter category.

This film's...

Canadian director Matthew Rankin’s Persian and French-language drama Universal Language has won the inaugural Audience Award of Directors’ Fortnight.

This is the first official prize launched by Directors’ Fortnight which does not have a jury. The €7,500 cash award, is also the first audience award to be launched in Cannes, across the Official Selection and the parallel sections.

It is being sponsored by the Chantal Akerman Foundation, which preserves the legacy of the director who retained strong ties with Directors’ Fortnight throughout her career, after screening breakthrough film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce – 1080 Brussel in the section in 1975.

Described as taking place “somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg”, Universal Language intertwines multiple characters.

Gradeschoolers Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen in the winter ice and try to claim it, while Massoud leads a group of befuddled tourists through the monuments and historic sites of Winnipeg and Matthew quits...

In Universal Language, a man makes a journey to his childhood home and meets the family now living there––these are at least the broad strokes. The director is Matthew Rankin, a Canadian filmmaker whose work usually requires less-basic terms. In his previous film The Twentieth Century, Rankin reimagined the life of Canada’s longest-serving prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, through a lens of German expressionism: a trippy Brazil with a masturbation complex. Much of the casting was done either cross-gender or color-blind: “In a school play you can have a Filipino Captain von Trapp and a transgender Artful Dodger and it’s fine,“ Rankin explained at the time. ”In film, I don’t understand why there’s this pressure to always link an actor to their exact demographic profile.”

For Universal Language, Rankin takes that idea to a different place: the Winnipeg of this film is, for wont...

In the Canadian cities of Montreal and Winnipeg, a futile tension exists between French and English speakers — doubly silly, since the country is officially bilingual. In his gently satirical “Universal Language,” writer-director Matthew Rankin imagines a rather fanciful solution, where Farsi is now the region’s dominant tongue. Taking his cues from such Iranian classics as “Children of Heaven” and “The White Balloon,” Rankin mixes the humanism of Majid Majidi, Jafar Panahi, et al. with his own peculiar brand of comedy (as seen in the more off-the-wall “The Twentieth Century”), offering a delightful cross-cultural hybrid designed to celebrate our differences.

Though Rankin shows a genuine affection for all things Persian, the first and most obvious hiccup to his premise is that audiences don’t necessarily share his interest or his references. There’s something inherently provocative — and perhaps even triggering to some — about seeing a nondescript Canadian elementary school where...

Exclusive: Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever (Bff) has acquired international sales rights for Canadian director Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language.

The intriguing Persian and French-language drama is among 21 feature films announced as being selected for the 2024 edition of Cannes parallel section Directors’ Fortnight on Tuesday.

In a first key distribution deal for the movie, Oscilloscope Laboratories have taken U.S. rights. Quebecois distributor Maison4Tiers will release in Canada.

Universal Language is Rankin’s second feature after The Twentieth Century, on which Bff also handled international sales. The surrealist dark comedy won the Berlinale Fipresci Award in 2020 and Best Canadian debut award in TIFF Midnight Madness 2019.

Rankin has also made multiple short films including The Tesla World Light, which premiered in Cannes Critic’s Week 2017.

Going under the Persian title of Avaz boughalamoune (Lovesong for a Turkey), Rankin’s new film Universal Language is described as taking place “somewhere between...

The 57th edition of Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival, which runs June 30-July 8, has planned a retrospective program focused on Iranian cinema with a selection of films made in the past four years. The festival will also celebrate the work of Japanese filmmaker Yasuzo Masumura.

Commenting on the Iranian cinema program, the festival said in a statement: “Collectively these works offer an insightful testimony of the burning creativity of Iran’s artists in face of the challenging reality. Nine mostly young filmmakers – urgent, unheard voices – who palpably bear a spiritual connection to the previous generations of their country’s greats, tackle the current reality with a remarkable sensitivity and great inventiveness.

“Melancholic dramas, comedies, war movies, sci-fis…films about love, and films within films. Together, these nine unique and intensely personal testimonies form a multi-dimensional mosaic that reflect the collective spirit and openness of Iran’s young cinema of today.