The Tribe

At an isolated Ukrainian boarding school, students cannot speak or hear. Their communication is visual, using rapid-fire Ukrainian Sign Language and heated exchanges of forceful body language. As the film disclaims, there is no voice-over and there are no subtitles or translations. Instead the film coaxes us to comprehend the institution’s language. We learn from the characters’ actions and counteractions – as does the film’s malleable protagonist, Sergey. Upon arriving at the institution, Sergey is immediately vacuumed into its seedy universe: a hurricane of drugs, dangerously volatile sex, and rapidly escalating violence. As he transitions from the role of outsider to inner-circle ringleader, we witness a tale of moral and ethical corruption in him, his classmates, and the school’s complicit administration. Through a masterful construction of long takes told by an unsympathetic camera, THE TRIBE is a portrait of lust and betrayal told through a fresh visual vocabulary. Impossible to forget, its effects will leave you… speechless. (In Ukrainian Sign Language without subtitles) – C.P.