Name: Universal Language
Start: 2025-04-06T13:00:00-07:00
Location: Shaw Auditorium At Vancouver Island Conference Centre

Universal Language
April 6th 1 pm
Matthew Rankin
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Canada | 2024 | 89m | Farsi, French
Shaw Auditorium
Vancouver Island Conference Centre
80 Commercial Street
Nanaimo BC V9R 5J8
Universal Language is receiving universal acclaim and is the winner of multiple awards, including the Audience Award, Director's Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival, Bright Horizon's Award at Melbourne International Film Festival, Best Canadian Discovery at Toronto International Film Festival, and Best Canadian Film at Vancouver International Film Festival.
It is Canada's Choice for the Best International Feature Film Category at this year's Academy Awards. It was recently shortlisted.
Filmmaker Matthew Rankin introduces us to a charmingly impossible Canada where Persian and French are the two official languages, and loneliness is the common currency. Set in a reimagined Winnipeg, the film follows a group of children on eccentric quests to flummox the adults around them, and the government worker who returns home only to find his family is not what he remembered. Universal Language is a loving exploration of a diasporic nation, filtered through a deadpan comic sensibility that will feel like a warm blanket to fans of Wes Anderson and Aki Kaurismaki.