Matthew Rankin’s surrealist Farsi-language comedy, Universal Language, has been selected as Canada’s submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 2025 Academy Awards.

Winnipeg-born, Quebec-based Rankin directed the film and co-wrote the script with Pirouz Nemati and Ila Firouzabadi.

Universal Language is produced by Sylvain Corbeil from Montreal’s Metafilms. It is distributed in Canada by Maison 4:3.

The film is set somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg and follows three seemingly unrelated characters and their stories. It stars Rankin himself, Mani Soleymanlou (A Brother’s Love), Danielle Fichaud (Aline), Pirouz Nemati (Another Word for Learning) and first time actors Rojina Esmaeili, Saba Vahedyousefi and Sobhan Javadi.

Best Friend Forever is the international sales agent for Universal Language, excluding Canada and the U.S. Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired U.S. rights. 

Universal Language is produced with participation from Telefilm Canada, SODEC and provincial tax credits from Quebec and Manitoba.

The film has already been sold to close to 45 countries, Corbeil told Playback Daily during a press conference on the film’s selection on Tuesday (Aug. 27). He added that the team is expecting more distributors to be interested after the film’s festival run.

The film premiered in the Cannes parallel section Directors Fortnight where it was awarded the Chantal Akerman Prize, the first Audience Prize of the Director’s Fortnight program. It recently won the Bright Horizons award at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), granting Rankin a cash prize of AU$140,000 (approximately C$128,000).

Universal Language will have its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival.

The film will be released theatrically in Canada this fall and February in the U.S., according to the respective distributors.

The 97th Academy Awards are scheduled to air on March 2, 2025. The shortlists will be announced on Dec. 17, and nominations will be revealed on Jan. 17, 2025.

Image courtesy of Metafilms