Category:

Arts and Culture

Event Details:

Sunday 25 May 2025, 3:30 pm
Rainbow Cinemas, Northumberland Mall

Synopsis

Winter. Somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg. Negin and Nazgol find a large sum of money frozen deep within the sidewalk ice and try to find a way to get it out. Massoud leads a group of befuddled tourists upon an increasingly-absurd walking tour of Winnipeg monuments and historic sites. Matthew leaves his job at the Quebec government and embarks upon a mysterious journey to visit his estranged mother. Time, geography and identities crossfade, interweave and collide into a surreal comedy of misdirection.

Structured like a Venn diagram — at the point of confluence between Jacques Tati and Abbas Kiarostami's The Koker Trilogy — Universal Language is at once a diary film, an absurdist city symphony and a welling-up of confinement-era emotion exploring the mysterious interzone where one person ends and the rest of the world begins. An elusive, half-remembered dream of home, solitude, our responsibilities to others and the wild turkeys that haunt us.

Director: Matthew Rankin
Cast: Rojina Esmaeili, Saba Vahedyousefi, Sobhan Javadi, Pirouz Nemati, Mani Soleymanlou, Danielle Fichaud, Matthew Rankin
Genre: Surreal absurdist Comedy
Languages: Persian, French
Run time: 89 min

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

The indie Canadian director Matthew Rankin ("The Twentieth Century") co-writes with Ila Firouzabadi and Pirouz Nemati this absurdist satirical comedy. It features an Iranian cast and a fair amount of strange visuals and odd takes (a store that only sells Kleenex). The genial film has cult film potential. It's basically a story of Iranian immigrants assimilating into the Western culture while being a heavy influence on the Canadian French and English culture.

Availability and Prices 

Singles: $10 -  Outlets (below) carry series tickets and tickets for "next" film.  Singles for all films are available at NFS Table at Mall at foot of the escalator.

Packages: $45 - ticket outlet sales available until 4 January or at NFS table at Mall on 5 January.

Note: All Tickets are sold as General Admission - more choices for seating are available for early arrivals.

Sales are cash only.

Sales Locations

Table at the Mall
As usual, tickets for all movies will be available starting an hour before the movie starts - that's at 2:30 pm on Movie Sundays.
Cash and cheque only please. 

Ticket Outlets (Cash only)

Cobourg

Rainbow Cinemas Box Office - at any time box office is open - Packages only

Readers' Nook 29 King Street West, Cobourg
Open 11:00 am to 5:00 pm Tuesday through Saturday

Port Hope
Bibelot
56 Walton Street, Port Hope 905-885-9682
Open seven days a week
Monday through Saturday 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Sunday - 11:00 am to 4:00 pm

Event Location:

Rainbow Cinemas, Northumberland Mall

Name of Event Organizer:

Jody and Ken Forsyth