Universal Language
We have the opportunity to showcase a few films that have shine in the past few months in Quebec. While we await the winner of the Prix collégial du cinéma québécois, let's discover - or rediscover the nominated films of Jean-François Leblanc, Anne Émond, Steve Patry, Jonathan Beaulieu-Cyr and Matthew Rankin. A program of short films will also offer a glimpse at the best offerings of the year.
This screening will be followed by a Q&A
Winner of eight awards at 2025 Gala Québec Cinéma, including Best Film, Best Direction and Best Screenplay
Somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg. Negin and Nazgol find a banknote frozen in the ice and search for a way to extract it. Massoud guides a group of confused tourists through Winnipeg’s increasingly absurd monuments and historic sites. Matthew gives up his job with the Quebec government and embarks on a mysterious journey to visit his mother. The personal identities, space-time and geography of these three stories merge, intertwine and respond to each other in this surreal comedy of disorientation.
Matthew Rankin
Matthew Rankin was born in Winnipeg and studied history at McGill and Université Laval. He is the director of some 40 short films and two features which have been variously presented at Sundance, SXSW, Annecy, TIFF, the Berlinale, Cannes Critics Week and Directors Fortinight and on the Criterion Channel. His first feature, The Twentieth Century, was awarded the FIPRESCI prize of the international film critics at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival and the 2019 Best First Canadian Feature Award at TIFF. Universal Language, winner of the inaugural People's Choice Award at the 2024 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, is Matthew's second feature. He lives in Montréal.
Bio: Maison 4:3
Photo: Aziz Zoromba
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