Spoilers follow for the film Universal Language, released in theaters late last year for an Oscar-qualifying run and expanded to additional markets on February 14, 2025. A core aspect of Iranian ...

Take this four-star tour of a Winnipeg that may never exist. The stony, terse comedy “Universal Language” has all the wind, snow and monotony one might envision in Manitoba, especially for those ...

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 ...

On the heels of its world premiere at Cannes, Matthew Rankin‘s comedy Universal Language has been named as Canada’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. The ...

There’s a scene partway through Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language that is a triumph of visual filmmaking. One of the protagonists, Matthew (aka Matheiu), played by the director himself, is arranging ...

Tehran meets Winnipeg in what Rankin described as an "autobiographical hallucination" through cinema, and it won the Audience Award in Cannes Directors' Fortnight this year. There is nothing lost in ...