In a bizarre liminal space somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg, between utopia and slapstick, the lives of a multicultural ensemble intertwine in unexpected and mysterious ways. Grade schoolers Negin and Nazgol discover a large banknote buried in the permafrost and try to claim it as their own. Meanwhile, Massoud leads a group of wide-eyed tourists through Winnipeg’s historic sites and monuments. Matthew quits his pointless job at a Quebec government office and sets off on an enigmatic journey to visit his mother. Space, time, and personal identities blur, intertwine, and echo in a surreal comedy full of absurdist gags, pink Christmas trees, and Groucho Marx lookalikes.
In a homage to the early works of Abbas Kiarostami and the legends of silent cinema, Canadian experimental filmmaker Matthew Rankin reminds us that language is no barrier as long as we’re willing to communicate, and that belonging to a community is not inherited at birth but earned through action. His humanist dramedy suggests that true universality can only be achieved through singularity, and that the glue of society isn’t found in passports or borders, but in small acts of kindness and a politics of radical hospitality.
Matthew Rankin, born in Winnipeg, studied history at McGill and Université Laval. As a young filmmaker, he travelled to Iran hoping to study cinema with the great masters of Iranian cinema. While his naive venture failed, Matthew has directed about forty short animated, documentary and fiction film that have been presented at Sundance, Annecy, Berlinale, Cannes, as well as on the Criterion Channel. His feature debut The Twentieth Century (2019) won the FIPRESCI Prize at Berlinale and the award for Best Canadian First Feature Film at Toronto International Film Festival. Rankin has variously worked as a commercial animator, editor, actor, cleaner at monkey sanctuary in Cornwall and a media officer for the Dominion Parks & Historic Sites of Canada. He is not entirely certain where he lives but is frequently spotted in Montréal.
