# Universal Language (2024 film)

Universal Language (French: Une langue universelle, Persian: آواز بوقلمون, romanized: Avaz-e boughalamoun, lit. 'The voice/song of a turkey') is a 2024 Canadian absurdist comedy-drama film, co-written and directed by Matthew Rankin.
It received positive reviews from critics and was named one of the top 5 international films of 2024 by the National Board of Review. The film was selected as the Canadian entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. It had a limited release on February 25, 2025, through Oscilloscope Laboratories.

## Plot

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 seceded federal government of Quebec and travels home to Winnipeg to visit his mother.

## Cast

* Rojina Esmaeili
* Saba Vahedyousefi
* Sobhan Javadi
* Pirouz Nemati
* Mani Soleymanlou
* Danielle Fichaud
* Matthew Rankin

## Release

The film had its world premiere in the Directors' Fortnight section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2024, and had its North American premiere at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival.
It also screened as the opening film of the 2024 Festival du nouveau cinéma, in the Currents section of the 62nd New York Film Festival, and 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.
It had a limited release in the United States on February 25, 2025, through Oscilloscope Laboratories.

## Reception
### Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 46 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "Bridging two nations with a clever and surreal conceit, Universal Language is a culture clash comedy brimming with wisdom." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 83 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Fionnuala Halligan of Screen Daily wrote: "Universal Language 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."
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."
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."
The film was named to TIFF's annual Canada's Top Ten list for 2024.

### Awards

| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
| Cannes Film Festival | 2024 | Audience Award, Director's Fortnight | Matthew Rankin | Won |
| Melbourne International Film Festival | 2024 | Bright Horizons Award | Matthew Rankin | Won |
| Toronto International Film Festival | 2024 | Best Canadian Discovery | Matthew Rankin | Won |
| Vancouver International Film Festival | 2024 | Best Canadian Film | Matthew Rankin | Won |
| Directors Guild of Canada | 2024 | Jean-Marc Vallée DGC Discovery Award | Matthew Rankin | Nominated |
| National Board of Review | 2024 | Top Five International Films | Matthew Rankin | Honored |
| Toronto Film Critics Association | 2024 | Rogers Best Canadian Film | Matthew Rankin | Won |