Winnipeg director Matthew Rankin says next films will focus on Progressive Conservatives, Esperanto
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Universal Language director Matthew Rankin says he's channelling his creative energy into two new films: one probing Canada's conservative legacy and another on the world's most famous made-up language.
The Winnipeg native says he's working on an "experimental collage" that recounts the history of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada through archival footage, including old TV commercials, public service announcements and instructional films.
Rankin says he wants to explore the party's evolution because he's been preoccupied by what he describes as Canada's "reckoning" with conservatism.
Rankin says he and Universal Language co-writer Ila Firouzabadi are also working on a docu-fiction film called Congresso, which is centred on Esperanto, the world's most widely spoken constructed language.
Rankin says Congresso builds on the themes in Universal Language, which imagined an absurdist vision of Winnipeg where the two official languages are Farsi and French, and ominous propaganda banners feature former real-life Progressive Conservative premier Brian Pallister.
That Winnipeg-set dramedy, which was short-listed for an Academy Award, now leads all film contenders at next month's Canadian Screen Awards with 13 nominations, including for best film, best directing and best original screenplay.
Rankin says he began filming Congresso at 2022's World Esperanto Congress convention, which took place in Montreal.
"Esperanto and progressive conservatism, these are not guaranteed crowd pleasers. I don't know what kind of audience there exists for that," laughs Rankin, reached by phone in Montreal last month following word of the Canadian Screen Award nominations.
"But we felt the same way about Universal Language. If these only play at the Oakville Creativity Festival, that's fine. I have no clue who will watch anything. I really just am following what thrills my soul."
Rankin says he's similarly following his instinct in exploring the many shades of conservatism with a still-untitled film.
"Conservatism is something we're kind of reckoning with at the moment, and it's something that I don't exactly understand the meaning of. Progressive conservatism, which is a very Canadian idea, is even more mysterious in a lot of ways, but it's very different from contemporary conservatism," he says.
"[The film] explores what it means and its evolution."
Timely topic amid trade tension
Rankin says the film feels especially timely amid trade tensions with the United States and threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to make Canada the 51st state. He said it's healthy that Canadians are now thinking about what their citizenship means.
"It's really good that people ask these questions because people don't even vote anymore, right? There's been a degree of collective withdrawal from the idea that we live in a society. I think we've been led down this terrible path of disposable culture and clientelism," he explains.
"It's the idea of: Why should I pay for your chemotherapy, your employment insurance, your health care, your experimental animation? I don't use any of that. That's your problem. It's just every man for himself."
He says the film is inspired by the works of U.S. documentary filmmakers Adam Curtis and Brett Morgen, who he calls masters of the experimental collage. He hopes to finish the movie next year.
Rankin says he's glad to live in a country that funds universal health care and supports the arts, but worries more Canadians are adopting a mindset of "one-stop shopping and 'I don't care about my neighbour."'
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Winnipeg Free Press
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Matthew Rankin began his speech in Farsi, took a detour into French and wound back toward English when accepting the Canadian Screen Award for achievement in direction Sunday for Universal Language, a feature film set at a dreamy intersection connecting Winnipeg to Tehran. 'This is delightful,' Rankin told the crowd at CBC's Broadcast Centre in downtown Toronto. 'I'm from Winnipeg — I'm not accustomed to winning anything — so this is really weird and sweet and nice, so thank you very much.' It's a line that Rankin will now be forced to retire: with six wins — including original screenplay, editing, costume design, casting and art direction, handed out at Saturday's industry gala for cinematic arts — Universal Language, shot in Winnipeg and Montreal, was a repeat champion on Sunday night. Chris Young / The Canadian Press Matthew Rankin won as best director; his Universal Language took home five more awards. 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'We all know what political moment we're living in. Every day there are new Berlin Walls shooting up all around us and pitting us against each other into very cruel binaries, and if our film stands for anything, it stands for the fact that kindness can, in fact, be a radical gesture, and that's really what we believe in now more than ever.' Other Winnipeg-related winners at the awards include the locally made Wilfred Buck, which nabbed David Schmidt an award for best editing of a feature-length documentary, and local writer Scott Montgomery as part of a team of winners for best writing, animation, for the Apple TV+ prodution Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin. The 2025 Canadian Screen Awards show, which aired live June 1 on CBC and CBC Gem, is also available to stream on Crave as of 8 p.m. Monday. Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
