Universal Language from director Matthew Rankin, which earned an audience prize presented to the best film in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes film festival, has been chosen by Canada to compete in the best international feature category at the Academy Awards.
The absurdist comedy in the Farsi and French languages is an offbeat homage to Iranian cinema that takes place n the Canadian cities of Montreal and Winnipeg. In Universal Language, Rankin reimagines a Canada where Farsi is now a dominant tongue.
Structured like a Venn diagram, Universal Language according to a synopsis becomes “a diary film, an absurdist city symphony and a welling-up of confinement-era emotion exploring the mysterious interzone where one person ends and the rest of the world begins. An elusive, half remembered dream of home, solitude, our responsibilities to others and the wild turkeys that haunt us.”
Director Rankin added in a statement on Tuesday: “We are amazed by this improbable selection and we will do our very best to represent Canada at the Oscars. Universal Language is an expression of very great collective joy between myself and my friends Pirouz Nemati, Ila Firouzabadi, Sylvain Corbeil and all the beautiful and hilarious people who created this strange, triangle-shaped, Irano-Winnipego-Québécois brain which became our film, beh naamé doosti (in the Name of Friendship).”
The ensemble cast includes Rankin, Rojina Esmaeili, Saba Vahedyousefi, Sobhan Javadi, Pirouz Nemati, Matthew Rankin, Mani Soleymanlou, Danielle Fichaud, Bahram Nabatian, Ila Firouzabadi, Hemela Pourafzal and Dara Najmabadi.
Universal Language will also have a North American premiere at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival.
Rankin directed Universal Language based on a script he co-wrote with Pirouz Nemati and Ila Firouzabadi, with Sylvain Corbeil producing. The film is produced by Metafilms and will be released in Canada by Maison 4:3. International, with domestic sales handled by Oscilloscope Laboratories.
