UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE Trailer: The Fierce Embrace of Multiculturalism
Oh, Canada. We like to call you a mosaic, a land in which people are free to maintain their culture and language, and to a certain extent, this is true. Growing up in Toronto, now living in Montreal, I love to visit Chinatown, Little Italy, Little Portugal, indulge in the foods, music, and languages spoken around me, a slice of the world in my proverbial backyard.
And yet, the reality can often be somewhat different. We can begin with being a settler nation and the loss of many indigenous languages, and even today, often immigrants are harassed, or worse, for speaking their native tongue. Our fierce embrace of multiculturalism also means we risk crushing it. Matthew Rankin (The Twentieth Century) is keenly away of this dichotomy. Raised in Winnipeg, now living in Montreal, his films offer a unique perspective on what it means to live in this land, where on one hand you're encouraged to be yourself, on the other can face hardship if you do. His films offer a refreshing perspective on the Canadian identity. His new film, which won the Audience Awards at Directors Fortnight, imagines a alternative version of Winnipeg where only Farsi is spoken and the rivers of the city are almost lay lines creating a surreality which is far closer to our own existence that we might like to believe.
Somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg. Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen in the winter ice and try to get it out. Massoud leads a group of increasingly-confused tourists through the monuments and historic sites of Winnipeg. Matthew quits his job at the Québec government and embarks upon a mysterious journey to visit his mother. Space, time and personal identities crossfade, interweave and echo into a surreal comedy of disorientation.
Our own Ankit Jhunjhunwala reviewed the film and had this to say: "Univeral Language is an absurdist comedy that is not just a great Winnipeg film, but a great Canadian film. It is a film made by Canadians, for Canadians and extolls Canadian values. In a nod to the country’s diverse make-up, it is performed entirely in Farsi and French with a superb ensemble cast including numerous Iranian-Canadian actors. The tone veers somewhere between Wes Anderson and Jacques Tati. And the humor derives organically from national impulses, like Quebec not giving a fuck about the rest of the country."
Universal Language as upcoming festival screenings at TIFF, Fantastic Fest, New York FF, and will be released in the USA by Oscilliscope Laboratories in February 2025. Check out the trailer below.
