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. Space, time and personal identities crossfade, interweave and echo into a surreal comedy of misdirection. Directed by Matthew Rankin (THE TWENTIETH CENTURY). Canada’s Official Selection for the 2025 Academy Awards.
“The films of Abbas Kiarostami and his New Iranian Cinema contemporary Mohsen Makhmalbaf are Rankin’s most obvious touchstones here, but audiences will also recognize the influence of the Swedish absurdist Roy Andersson and [Winnepeg’s own] Guy Maddin, all filtered through Rankin’s deadpan comic sensibility.” —Norm Wilner, Toronto International Film Festival “Parodies animate UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE…in which absurdism guides us toward a better way of life.” —Saffron Maeve, Sight & Sound “Despite being set in a parallel-universe Winnipeg where the people talk in Farsi and the world around them seems as if it’s been frozen in time since the mid-1980s… This wonderfully deadpan whatsit is the work of a white 43-year-old Canadian man who fell in love with the movies a time when ‘foreign’ cinema was becoming more available to people outside major cultural hubs…. UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE is first and foremost a testament to the shared artifice of all filmic storytelling, and to the singular realities it’s able to bring alive in turn.” —David Ehrlich, IndieWire
