The Tribe(Jumping Frames International Dance Video Festival 2018)

Critics Week Grand Prize, Cannes Film Festival 2014

Often, we try to understand what has been spoken. What did he/she say? But what if we just experience the image with body movement, the sound of the space and the event that took place? As the film progress through non-verbal acting and sign language, without subtitles, the story unfolds as teenage Sergey, a new student at the boarding school, is thrown into a world of confrontation as a student gang attempts to envelop him into violence and criminal behaviour in the school for the deaf. Using only Ukrainian sign language, and features no voice-over or translation, the story is entirely dependent on what the actors are able to communicate with their bodies.
When the dialogue and narrative are depended upon the communication of body expression, isn’t that dance?