Matthew Rankin was born in Winnipeg and studied history at McGill University and Université Laval. As a young filmmaker, he traveled to Iran with the deluded hope of studying cinema with the Iranian masters. While this naive effort failed, Rankin went on to direct some forty short animated, documentary, and fiction films, which have been presented at the Sundance Film Festival, South by Southwest, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the Berlin and Toronto International Film Festivals, and the Festival de Cannes. His first feature-length film, The Twentieth Century (2019), won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlinale and was named Best Canadian First Feature at TIFF. Ranking has variously worked as a commercial animator, editor, and actor. He is not entirely certain where he lives but is frequently spotted in Montreal.