Directors’ Fortnight: Matthew Rankin’s ‘Universal Language’ Wins Inaugural Audience Award; Europa Cinema & SACD Prize Winners
deadline.comCanadian director Matthew Rankin’s Persian and French-language drama Universal Language has won the inaugural Audience Award of Directors’ Fortnight.
This is the first official prize launched by Directors’ Fortnight which does not have a jury. The €7,500 ($8,100) cash award, is also the first audience award to be launched in Cannes, across the Official Selection and the parallel sections.
It is being sponsored by the Chantal Akerman Foundation, which preserves the legacy of the director who retained strong ties with Directors’ Fortnight throughout her career, after screening breakthrough film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce – 1080 Brussel in the section in 1975.
Described as taking place “somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg”, Universal Language intertwines multiple characters. Gradeschoolers Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen in the winter ice and try to claim it, while Massoud leads a group of befuddled tourists through the monuments and historic sites of Winnipeg and Matthew quits his meaningless job in a Québecois government office and sets out upon an enigmatic journey to visit his mother.
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