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A chrsitmas tree with legs in the foreground. A cross a snowy yard, two people look on.

Universal Language Une Langue Universelle

  Matthew Rankin

  Canada     89 minutes

Synopsis

In this surreal vision of the not-too-distant-future, the official language of Canada is now Farsi. Against this oddball background, three slice-of-life stories emerge: Two young friends venture to retrieve money found frozen in a block of winter ice. A man quits his painfully bureaucratic government job and returns home. And a peculiar tour guide shows off some of Winnipeg’s dullest attractions to a group of discombobulated tourists. Taken together, these deadpan stories create a picture of life in the “heart of Canada” that’s both hilarious and heartwarming. Featuring masterful production design with an eye toward the absurd, director Matthew Rankin (The Twentieth Century) describes his second feature as “a love letter to Iranian cinema,” combining the soulfulness of Abbas Kiarostami with the visual whimsy of Wes Anderson to create an appealingly unusual odyssey.

  

 Farsi, French with subtitles

Screenings & Events

Screening

Sun, Oct 20 @ 2:00pm CDT

at AMC NEWCITY 14, screen 13

Scheduled to Attend:
Director Matthew Rankin

Screening

Tue, Oct 22 @ 11:30am CDT

at AMC NEWCITY 14, screen 13

Scheduled to Attend:
Director Matthew Rankin

Media

Film Credits

  •   Sylvain Corbeil
  •   Matthew Rankin, Pirouz Nemati, Ila Firouzabadi
  •   Xi Feng
  •   Isabelle Stachtchenko
  •   Rojina Esmaeili, Saba Vahedyousefi, Sobhan Javadi, Pirouz Nemati, Matthew Rankin, Mani Soleymanlou, Danielle Fichaud, Bahram Nabatian, Ila Firouzabadi, Hemela Pourafzal, Dara Najmabadi
  •   Amir Amiri, Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux
  •   Pirouz Nemati, Ila Firouzabadi, Daniel Berger, Aaron Katz, Matthew Rankin
  •   Metafilms
  •   https://universallanguage.oscilloscope.net/

Sponsors

Comedy Program Partner

With Support From

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