Directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi
Ukraine / Netherlands | 2014 | 130 min | Ukrainian Sign Language (no spoken dialogue)
The Tribe is a daring and unforgettable film that rethinks what cinema can do. Told entirely through Ukrainian Sign Language, with no spoken dialogue and no on-screen translation, it pulls the audience into a world where meaning is carried through gesture, proximity, silence, and raw physical presence. The result is immersive, unsettling, and strangely intimate.
Set in a boarding school for deaf teenagers, the story follows Sergey, a new student who is quickly absorbed into a rigid and unforgiving hierarchy and an underground economy ruled by violence, intimidation, and exploitation. As he rises within this closed society, a relationship sparks that threatens the rules holding the system together. What unfolds is both a brutal coming-of-age story and a fearless portrait of power, complicity, and the cost of belonging.
Premiering at Cannes Critics’ Week, The Tribe received major international recognition and remains one of the most radical and influential Ukrainian films of the last decade.
There will be a post-screening roundtable discussion with the film’s director and Yale faculty:
Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi, Director of The Tribe (joining via Zoom)
Marta Kuzma, Professor of Art, Yale School of Art
Leighton Pierce, Visiting Professor, Film and Media Studies
Neta Alexander, Assistant Professor of Film and Media
Julia Silvestri, Program Director and Senior Lector I, American Sign Language
Leslie Rubin, Lector, American Sign Language
This screening is part of the Ukraine New Cinema Series, which brings contemporary Ukrainian filmmakers and films to Yale to foster critical conversations about culture, identity, and artistic expression in a time of profound social and political transformation.
Co-sponsored by:
Yale Ukrainian Program · Yale Ukraine House · Slavic Department · The Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund · Razom for Ukraine · Yale MacMillan Center Program in Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies · European Studies Council · Film & Media Studies · Yale Film Society · Whitney Humanities Center
