Montrealer Matthew Rankin's Universal Language to represent Canada at Oscars

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Montreal filmmaker Matthew Rankin’s Une Langue universelle (Universal Language) will represent Canada in the Oscar category of Best International Feature Film.

Telefilm Canada revealed on Tuesday the choice by the pan-Canadian selection committee from among 26 candidates.

“It’s so improbable to be selected to represent Canada. But we’re going to do our best to represent Canada. We share this joy with all the beautiful and hilarious people who are part of this filmmaking family,” said the Manitoba-born director, who now lives in Montreal, at a news conference.

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His second feature film, written with Pirouz Nemati and Ila Firouzabadi, premièred at the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. It will have its North American première at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Sept. 10, and will then be released in theatres on Sept. 20.

The film is described as a “surrealist comedy.” It features three stories, including one in which the director plays himself as a civil servant who leaves his job with the Quebec government to find his loved ones in Winnipeg.

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His story intertwines with that of Nazgol and Negin, who are trying to recover a sum of money frozen in the ice covering a sidewalk, as well as that of Massoud, who leads a group of disoriented tourists on a walking tour of Winnipeg.

The film travels between Winnipeg, Quebec City and Tehran. The dialogue also alternates between French and Farsi.

The short list of 15 potential contenders for Best International Film will be revealed on Dec. 17, and the final selection of five nominees will be announced on Jan. 17. The 97th Academy Awards take place March 2, 2025 in Los Angeles.

According to the film’s producer Sylvain Corbeil, Universal Language is “in a good position to go as far as possible” in the race for the Oscars.

“We already have a partner in the United States who is very solid, who believes in the film. We already have a lot of media coverage in the United States from the specialized press. Our reviews are excellent,” he said.

The Metafilms producer also pointed out that the feature film has had “a very solid festival run” with confirmation from about 50 international festivals.

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“We won the Audience Award at Cannes. We just won an award at the Melbourne Festival. We have an extraordinary team of press relations people and a film crew. We made this film collectively from the very beginning. It was a huge human joy to be part of this project,” he said.

“And it is with this energy that we will continue to promote the film.”

For the moment, nine countries have submitted their candidacy for Best International Film, according to Telefilm Canada.

Last year, 88 countries submitted a film in this category. Canada chose “Rojek,” also produced by Sylvain Corbeil. However, the documentary by young Montreal filmmaker of Kurdish origin Zayne Akyol was not a finalist.

So far, eight Canadian films have been officially nominated for Best International Film. The last one in the running was Kim Nguyen’s “Rebelle” in 2013. The only Canadian film to have won the statuette in this category is Denys Arcand’s “Les Invasions barbares” in 2004.

Rankin debuted in 2019 with the feature The Twentieth Century, an absurdist biopic of former prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King.

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