Iranian Film Festival

Name: Iranian Film Festival
Start: 2025-02-05T17:30:00-05:00
Location: IFC Center

Wednesday, Feb 5, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. EST

IFC Center

323 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY 10014

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Event details are subject to change. Before attending, please check with the organization to confirm.

About the Event

3rd IrFFNY presents a selection of acclaimed and award-winning films from one of the world’s most vital and distinguished national cinemas. The festival aims to unite two strands of Iranian moviemaking – the classic art-house Iranian cinema beloved by cinephiles around the world, and new cutting-edge works that showcase the adventurousness and daring nature of younger Iranian directors.

Schedule

5:30 pm: Women in Iranian Cinema

7:00 pm: Universal Language

Canada, 2024, Drama, 89min.

Director: Matthew Rankin
Writers: Ilia Firouzabadi, Pirouz Nemati, Matthew Rankin
Producer: Sylvain Corbeil
Cast: Rojina Esmaeili, Saba Vahedyousefi, Sobhan Javadi, Pirouz Nemati, Mani Sokeymanlou, Danielle Fichaud, Matthew Rankin

Synopsis:

A-Somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg. Negin and Nazgol find a sum of money frozen in the winter ice and try to get it out. Massoud leads a group of increasingly-confused tourists through the monuments and historic sites of Winnipeg. Matthew quits his job at the Québec government and embarks upon a mysterious journey to visit his mother. Time, geography and personal identities crossfade, interweave and collide into a surreal comedy of disorientation.

B-In a reimagined Winnipeg that looks a lot like 1980s Iran – just with a few more turkeys and Kleenex factories – two young kids find a banknote, leading them on an odyssey that takes them out of childhood and into the unforgiving world of adults. A disillusioned teacher shows up late to a class, only to insult his students. And a filmmaker (director Matthew Rankin, playing himself) arrives back at his family home and discovers that another man has taken his place.

For those keeping score, these are indeed homages to Jafar Panahi’s The White Balloon (MIFF 1996 & 2006) and Abbas Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s House? and Close-Up (MIFF 2003). These Iranian classics serve as inspirations for a unique undertaking by Rankin, whose debut feature, the fantastical biopic The Twentieth Century, won the FIPRESCI prize at Berlin and Best Canadian First Feature at Toronto. Calling Universal Language an “autobiographical hallucination” drawn from a formative obsession with Iranian cinema and a love–hate relationship with his hometown, Rankin spins his own My Winnipeg (MIFF 2008) by way of the meta-realist movies of Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf – though its still frames and sight gags owe just as much to the witty absurdities of Jacques Tati, Roy Andersson and Wes Anderson.

Festivals & Awards:

Canada’s Official Entry to the Oscars 2025 (Shortlisted Best International Feature Film Category)
– Cannes Film Festival 2024; Winner, Directors Audience Award.
– Toronto Int’l Film Festival 2024; Winner Best Canadian Discovery Award
– Hamburg Film Festival 2024; Winner 2024 Cinema Award.
– Melbourne Int’l Film Festival 2024; Winner, Best Film Bright Horizons Award
– National Board Review USA, Top 5 International Films

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