| Universal Language | |
| Native Name: | |
| Director: | Matthew Rankin |
| Producer: | Sylvain Corbeil |
| Starring: | Rojina Esmaeili Saba Vahedyousefi Sobhan Javadi Pirouz Nemati Mani Soleymanlou Danielle Fichaud |
| Music: | Amir Amiri Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux |
| Cinematography: | Isabelle Stachtchenko |
| Editing: | Xi Feng |
| Studio: | Metafilms |
| Distributor: | Maison 4:3 |
| Runtime: | 89 minutes |
| Country: | Canada |
| Language: | French Persian |
| Gross: | $4,550[1] |
Universal Language (fr|Une langue universelle, fa|آواز بوقلمون|translit=Avaz boughalamoune|translation=Lovesong for a Turkey) is a 2024 Canadian absurdist comedy-drama film, co-written and directed by Matthew Rankin.[2] It was selected as the Canadian entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.[3]
Described as a "surreal comedy of disorientation" set "somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg", the film blends the seemingly unrelated stories of Negin and Nazgol, who find money frozen in ice and try to claim it; Massoud, a tour guide in Winnipeg who is leading a confused and disoriented tour group; and Matthew (Rankin), who quits his unfulfilling job with the provincial government of Quebec and travels home to Winnipeg to visit his mother.[4]
The film had its world premiere in the Directors' Fortnight section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2024,[5] [6] and had its North American premiere at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival.[7] [8]
It is also slated to screen as the opening film of the 2024 Festival du nouveau cinéma.[9] It will also screen in the Currents section of the 62nd New York Film Festival.[10] The film was selected for the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024 under the World Cinema section, where it was screened together with An Urban Allegory by Alice Rohrwacher and JR.[11]
Fionnuala Halligan of Screen Daily wrote that the film "is doggedly eccentric, something that’s mirrored in its exaggerated aesthetic. There’s a pink cowboy-hatted singing turkey-shop worker; a man wandering around wearing a lit Christmas tree over his body; an absurdist bingo hall where men and women are interchangeable. Inside a pharmacy, all the labels are a generic Adam Stockhausen tribute — only they’re beige. There’s also a ‘Kleenex repository’ and reference made to a ‘Winnipeg Earmuff Authority’. Sad-eyed characters say things like: “My son choked to death in a marshmallow-eating contest,” or “she was flattened in a steamrolling accident”. You could call it whimsical. Absurdist. Contrived. Or an unexpectedly unusual concept album that doesn’t quite come off but was worth the effort. And you would be correct every time."[12]
Writing for IndieWire, David Ehrlich noted that the film "is first and foremost a testament to the shared artifice of all filmic storytelling, and to the singular realities it’s able to bring alive in turn."[13]
In Vulture, Bilge Ebiri called the film the best he had seen at Cannes and "a magnificent film, one that feels warm and familiar even as we realize just how startlingly original it is."[14]
At Cannes, the film won the Directors Fortnight program's first Audience Award.[15]
The film won the top prize at the 2024 Melbourne International Film Festival, the Bright Horizons Award.[16] At TIFF, it won the Best Canadian Discovery Award,[17] and it won the Summit Award for Best Canadian Feature at the 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival.[18]
The film has been selected as Canada's submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.[19]
The film was shortlisted for the 2024 Jean-Marc Vallée DGC Discovery Award.[20]