Universal Language
Matthew Rankin / CA, 2024 / 90 min.
Comedy with a surreal twist from Canadian director Matthew Rankin (The 20th Century) that links today’s Winnipeg, Canada, to the Teheran of the 1990s. Wes Anderson meets Abbas Kiarostami in Rankin’s ode to Iranian cinema, deftly interweaving dream and reality.
Introverted government official Matthew (Matthew Rankin) leaves Montreal to visit his sick mother in Winnipeg. But does he actually arrive in the city of his birth? Because when he gets there, it turns out everyone in the isolated Canadian metropolis is speaking Farsi. Matthew himself becomes embroiled in two children’s search for a missing pair of spectacles; in the meantime, guide Massoud leads a group of dismayed tourists around the monuments and historical sights of the city of ‘Winnipeg’.
Preliminary film
Before the screening of Universal Language, you will see the short film The Deer (5') from 2023. The life of the deer in this animated film by Baran Sedighian Bidgoli changes radically after he is injured. His old world no longer seems to suit him, so he decides to leave.
In Eye and in national cinemas.
This is part of
Special screenings
Details
Director
Matthew Rankin
Production year
2024
Country
CA
Original title
Une langue universelle
Length
90 min.
Language
Persian, French
Subtitles
ENG or NLD
Format
DCP
Part of
Previously Unreleased
Screened at prominent national and international festivals, yet never released in Dutch cinemas. Quite unjustly so, Eye Filmmuseum thinks, and so it has once again brought an exceptional selection of films from international festivals to the Netherlands.
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