About

"Matthew Rankin’s hometown of Winnipeg is transformed by an imaginary museum of images, languages, and film references in his sophomore feature, cowritten with Iranian artist Ila Firouzabadi and actor Pirouz Nemati. With its Tati-esque humour, homages to Iranian cinema (especially Abbas Kiarostami’s mystical adventures of children in a grownup world), and an attention to detail reminiscent of Wes Anderson, Universal Language is a feast for the senses of passionate, melancholic film lovers. Its unique, often comic stories of children and adults dealing with grief, loneliness, and displacement before finding meaning in friendship and family open like cracks in the ice - giving way to a flood of emotions in a remarkably humanist tale." MoMA

G | Very mild themes