Story
English or French? No, Farsi! A wonderfully absurd, intelligent comedy about the language conflict in Canada and a declaration of love for Iranian culture and the films of Kiarostami and Panahi. The introvert Matthew leaves Montreal and returns to his home city of Winnipeg to visit his sick mother. But somehow time and space seem to have been turned on their heads: bizarrely, everyone in this remote Canadian city seems to speak Farsi. And like in a film by Kiarostami, two children find a 500 Rial note frozen in ice and start searching – and Matthew gets caught up in the search.
Director
Among other awards, MATTHEW RANKIN (*1980 in Canada) was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize for his debut feature The Twentieth Century (2019). For Universal Language he won the Audience Prize in the Quinzaine des cinéastes section at Cannes.Trailer
Info
Universal Language
Fiction Feature
Farsi, French
Kaleidoscope | FF2024
Canada
2024
89 min
OV with German subtitles
Matthew Rankin
Matthew Rankin, Pirouz Nemati & Ila Firouzabadi
Rojina ESMAEILI, Saba VAHEDYOUSEFI, Sobhan JAVADI, Pirouz NEMATI, Matthew RANKIN, Mani SOLEYMANLOU, Danielle FICHAUD, Danielle FICHAUD, Ila FIROUZABADI, Hemela POURAFZAL, Dara NAJMABADI
Sylvain Corbeil
Isabelle Stachtchenko
Pablo Villegas & Armin Firouzabadi
Xi Feng
Amir Amiri & Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux
Louisa Schabas
Negar Nemati
Sam Javanrouh
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