The Tribe

Sergey is new to the boarding school for the deaf in Kiev, Ukraine. He quickly joins forces with youngsters from an organized gang, "The Tribe," in which violence and harassment rule life with ruthless dynamics. Out of necessity, Sergey also has to assert himself and through theft, robberies and pimping he secures his rank within the hierarchy. When he falls in love with Anna, who like the other girls in the group is being forced into prostitution by the leader, Sergey breaks the tribal code and is suddenly on his own. “The most intense movie of 2015” - The Rolling Stone "Is the film in some way about Ukraine’s own tribal identity, as distinct from Russia’s? One scene – a rare classroom scene, in which the principals are submitting to the school’s notional authority – shows a map in which Ukraine is seen in a western European context. There is a political stratum to The Tribe, just under its overt emotional level, an allegorical comment about the national experience of not hearing and not being heard. It is part of the makeup of one of this year’s strangest and most disturbing films." (Peter Bradshaw, in: The Guardian)