Film Details

The Cinematheque partners with the Cleveland Int’l Film Festival on one of the films showing in this year’s 39th edition, taking place March 18-29 at Tower City Cinemas and at other locations around town. This year’s co-presentation is unlike any movie you’ve ever seen: a Ukrainian drama set in a boarding school for deaf teens, told entirely in sign language with no subtitles. It is also one of the most groundbreaking, acclaimed, and unflinching films of the past year. The story focuses on a shy young man, newly arrived at the school, who soon learns that hooliganism reigns when classes end. A hierarchical criminal clique engaged in robbery and prostitution controls the “extracurricular activities” of the students, and the new kid is forced to find his own place in this gang. “Actions, emotions and desperate impulses speak far louder than words in The Tribe, a formally audacious coup de cinema that marks a stunning writing-directing debut…Feels like something unmistakably, radically new.” –Variety.