The Tribe (Plemya)
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The Tribe (Plemya)

“Rough, disturbing and totally captivating.” —Cannes Film Festival

Winner of three prizes during Critics Week at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, this truly original feature debut is a shocking and unflinching yet stimulating narrative told solely in sign language—with no subtitles. In this “astonishingly intimate and raw depiction of disenchanted youth” (Drafthouse Films), Sergey (Grigoriy Fesenko) arrives at a boarding school for the deaf, where he quickly becomes immersed in an underground subculture of prostitution, crime, and fear. He rises to power in the gang when he agrees to pimp out several classmates, inadvertently beginning a romance with one of the girls—a decision breaching the tribe’s ruthless code and resulting in dire and harrowing consequences.

“Most remarkable for the way it strips its characters to their raw, ferocious essence,” The Tribe features an ensemble of nonprofessional young actors who “perform with an intense, abrasive physicality that’s almost frightening in its eloquence” (Variety). 2014, DCP, in Ukrainian sign language with no subtitles, 132 minutes.

Note: Due to mature and explicit subject matter, viewer discretion is advised.