Matthew Rankin’s Farsi- and French-language offbeat homage to Iranian cinema bowed in Cannes and will also screen in Toronto. By Etan Vlessing Canada Bureau Chief The absurdist comedy in the Farsi and ...

Still from Universal Language (2024), dir. Matthew Rankin, with Rojina Esmaeili as “Negin” (image courtesy Oscilloscope Laboratories) In Universal Language, director Matthew Rankin transforms the ...

Director Matthew Rankin offers a cultural mashup where Persian and French are the official languages of Canada, and a local Tim Hortons serves Iranian delicacies. By Etan Vlessing Canada Bureau Chief ...

It's also fun to make art with turkeys. The Farsi title, آواز بوقلمون, translates to “The Song of the Turkey,” and the reason why is emblematic of both the film’s warmly absurd sense of humor and the ...

Director Matthew Rankin talks to IndieWire about the fine art of faking snow, even in Winnipeg. In “Universal Language,” two girls look for the means to liberate a huge bill frozen in ice; an intrepid ...

Universal Language, the original and quietly funny Oscar-shortlisted Cannes and TIFF premiering feature by Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin debuts on one screen each in New York and LA. Chinese ...

There’s a notion in the film industry that comedies don’t travel. Jokes have a regional audience, and humor gets lost in translation, the thinking goes. But director Matthew Rankin thinks more of ...

Matthew Rankin’s second feature is something of an anomaly on this year’s Oscar shortlist for International Feature Film. For one thing, it takes place in a world that doesn’t actually exist, positing ...