A Canadian film inspired by Iranian cinema and shot entirely in Farsi has won the Bright Horizons competition at the Melbourne International Film Festival, netting its creative team a cash prize of $140,000, one of the biggest festival prizes anywhere in the world. Speaking before the award was announced on Saturday night, Universal Language director Matthew Rankin said he knew exactly what he would do with the money if his film were to win. “I think I’d blow it all on dry cleaning and Tim Tams,” said the 43-year-old from Montreal.
“I’ve really become addicted.” Bright Horizons winner Matthew Rankin (back row, centre) with fellow nominees (clockwise from back left) Leonardo Van Dijl, Mo Harawe, Gints Zilbalodis, Luna Carmoon and Charles Williams. Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui To date he’s tried only the regular and double-coated varieties.
“But there’s more, right? I’ve bought four packets so far to bring back for friends, but they might not survive the flight. I mean, it is 23 hours.” American writer-director David Lowery, speaking on behalf of the Bright Horizons jury, said he and his fellow jurors selected Universal Language from the 10 feature films in competition because it most clearly demonstrated “that the future of cinema is bright indeed”.
It was, he said, “a film whose cultural specificity transcends borders, whose cinematic playfulness is matched equally by its sensitivity, and whose very form is in conversation with cinema past, present a.