The plot of Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language revolves around an Iranian banknote frozen in ice that leads two youths on an odyssey as they attempt to prise it free.
It has now been turned into $140,000 of Australian currency, with the film awarded the Bright Horizons prize at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) on Saturday night.
Rankin plays himself in the cross-cultural comedy, which he describes as an “autobiographical hallucination” drawn from a love-hate relationship with his hometown.
The Canadian writer/director reimagines Winnipeg so that it bears more resemblance to 1980s Iran, albeit with more turkeys and Kleenex factories, offering a distinct backdrop to a series of intertwined quests characterised by eccentricity.
The Bright Horizon prize comes after the film received the first-ever Directors’ Fortnight audience award at Cannes earlier this year.
In a statement, the jury panel of David Lowery, Deborah Scott, Jillian Nguyen, and producer Yulia Evina Bhara paid tribute to the “incredible” field for this year’s award before singling out Universal Language as the standout.
“One movie represented all of the facets of the Bright Horizons Award; 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 and future,” they said.
The jury also recognised Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis’ feature animation Flow with the Special Jury Prize, noting the wordless story about a menagerie of animals adrift on a boat that must work together to survive a catastrophic flood had had a “profound impact” on them.
Of the Australian winners, the $70,000 Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award went to director Jaydon Martin for his work on Flathead, while April Phillips received the newly named Uncle Jack Charles Award for kajoo yannaga (come on let’s walk together).
Two documentaries couldn’t be separated for the Audience Award, with Shannon Owen’s Left Write Hook and Krunal Padhiar and Semara Jose’s Voice sharing the prize.
Rounding out this year’s winners was Maria Zanetti’s tender coming-of-age film, Alemania, which took home the MIFF Schools Youth Jury Award.
In congratulating the winners, MIFF Artistic Director Al Cossar said he hoped the recognition would create “new opportunities that will be transformative to the professional pathways of those
awarded”.
“Finding and fostering talent is an indelible purpose of the festival, and seeing these talents be recognised throughout MIFF’s suite of awards, and at our festival, is a wonderful privilege,” he said.
The 2024 MIFF Award winners are as follows:
Bright Horizons Award presented by VicScreen
Universal Language directed by Matthew Rankin
Bright Horizons Special Jury Award
Flow directed by Gints Zilbalodis
Blackmagic Design Australian Innovation Award
Jaydon Martin, Flathead – directing
The Uncle Jack Charles Award in collaboration with Kearney Group
April Phillips, kajoo yannaga (come on let’s walk together) – director, lead artist
Intrepid Audience Award (joint winners)
Voice co-directed by Krunal Padhiar and Semara Jose
Left Write Hook directed by Shannon Owen
MIFF Schools Youth Jury Award, presented by Collarts
Alemania directed by Maria Zanetti