In a wintery, Farsi-speaking city that’s equal measures Winnipeg and Tehran, three narratives converge. Schoolchildren Negin (Rojina Esmaeili) and Nazgol (Saba Vahedyousefi) are tormented by a considerable sum of cash that’s encased in Manitoban-grade ice. Meanwhile, Massoud (co-writer Pirouz Nemati) shepherds a group of confounded visitors to tourist attractions such as the Kleenex Repository and the brutalist Beige District. Finally, Matthew Rankin (the film’s director and co-writer) abandons soul-crushing bureaucratic life in Quebec to reunite with his mother in this peculiar prairie outpost. As these storylines become comically entangled, the concepts of space, time, and identity grow increasingly opaque.
On the heels of The Twentieth Century (an absurdist, expressionistic reimagining of William Lyon Mackenzie King’s origin story), Rankin dreams a sophomore feature that’s every bit as deliriously entertaining and visually inventive but possesses considerably more emotional weight. While indebted to the meta-realist work of Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi, Rankin’s humorous, poetic fable establishes him as a singular voice in international cinema and reminds us that Winnipeg is indeed a wonderland.
Matthew Rankin
Rojina Esmaeili, Saba Vahedyousefi, Pirouz Nemati, Mani Soleymanlou, Matthew Rankin, Ila Firouzabadi
Canada
2024
In Farsi and French with English subtitles
SUMMIT Award, VIFF 2024; Chantal Akerman Audience Award, Directors’ Fortnight, Cannes 2024; Best Canadian Discovery Award, TIFF 2024
Coarse language
Open to youth!
$10 youth tickets available
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Pirouz Nemati, Ila Firouzabadi, Matthew Rankin, Dan Berger, Aaron Katz
Producer
Sylvain Corbeil
Screenwriter
Matthew Rankin, Pirouz Nemati, Ila Firouzabadi
Cinematography
Isabelle Stachtchenko
Editor
Xi Feng
Production Design
Louisa Schabas
Original Music
Amir Amiri, Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux
Also Playing
Love
This warm, thoughtful piece offers shrewd comic observations on modern dating as it trains a quizzical eye on the trysts of a female doctor, Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), and her colleague, a gay male nurse, Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen).
Sex
Two chimney sweeps living in heterosexual marriages find their views on sexuality and gender challenged by a series of unexpected events. In a set of sharply scripted conversations, both men confront heretofore unexplored aspects of their identity.
3 Faces
Iranian filmmaker Panahi and actress Behnaz Jafari, both playing themselves, receive a video in which a distraught teenaged girl, whose acting dreams have been quashed appears to kill herself. Panahi and Jafari decide to investigate...