International Feature Competition

UNE LANGUE UNIVERSELLE

Universal Language
Swiss Premiere
Matthew Rankin
Canada
SURREAL PERSIAN COMEDY
2024, 89'
VO. Farsi, French
ST. English, French
With
Danielle Fichaud, Mani Soleymanlou, Matthew Rankin
In a Persian-speaking Canada, Matthew returns to his native Winnipeg to visit his mother. A beautiful tribute to Iranian cinema, between exploration of memory and chance encounters.

A counterpoint to Anglo-Saxon films set abroad, in which the characters miraculously speak English, Matthew Rankin's new film turns Canada into a hybrid place, with Persian as its main language. A schoolboy loses his glasses and penalizes his entire class; a turkey escapes and torments the locals; two young girls try to retrieve a banknote trapped in the ice... And in the middle, Rankin himself, trying to reconnect with his past. In the midst of this disrupted space, the director stages a waking dream, punctuated by visual and narrative references to Iranian cinema that clash with the bittersweet rediscovery of a bygone era. Unexpected, funny and poetic.
Damien Brodard

Direction
Matthew Rankin
Screenplay
Ila Firouzabadi, Pirouz Nemati, Matthew Rankin
Image
Isabelle Stachtchenko
Editing
Xi Feng
Sound
Bernard Gariépy Strobl, Sacha Ratcliffe, Pablo Villegas
Music
Amir Amiri, Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux
Production
Metafilms (Sylvain Corbeil)
With
Rojina Esmaeili, Saba Vahedyousefi, Pirouz Nemati, Danielle Fichaud, Mani Soleymanlou, Matthew Rankin
World sales
Best Friend Forever

Matthew Rankin, GIFF 2021
Matthew Rankin
1980, Canada
Prior works
2022, Municipal Relaxation Module (Short, Director, Producer, Writer)
2019, The Twentieth Century (Feature, Director and Writer)
2014, Mynarski Death Plummet (Short, Director, Producer, Writer)
Friday 1 November | 23:00
Saturday 9 November | 13:00

Désolé

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