Deaf mute Sergey enters a specialised boarding school for deaf. In this new place, he needs to find his way through the hierarchy of the school's network, The Tribe, dealing with crime and prostitution. By taking part in several robberies, he gets propelled higher into the organisation. Then he meets one of the Chief's concubines, Anna, and unwittingly breaks all the unwritten rules of the tribe.
»I have never considered the idea of making this film with hearing actors. Body language is natural and very individual for deaf people. Because people who speak use only facial muscles when pronouncing words, while deaf people use the whole body to communicate. The casting of my movie lasted about a year, mainly through social networks. We have considered about 300 applicants for the leads. But we did not shoot a single professional. All of our artists are children from the streets. I think they gained some unique experience of a lifetime. I certainly did.« (Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy)
Miroslav Slabošpicki
Born in 1974 in Kiev, Ukraine. He graduated from the Kiev State Institute of Theatre and Arts, majoring in feature film directing. He has worked as a script writer on numerous TV films and later on started making his own films. His shorts, Diagnosis and Deafness, have been nominated for the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear Award. At the 2012 Locarno Film Festival, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy won the Silver Leopard for his short film Nuclear Waste.
filmography
2006 Incident (short)
2009 Diagnoz (Diagnosis) (short)
2010 Glukhota (Deafness) (short)
2012 Jaderni vidhodi (Nuclear Waste) (short)
2014 Plemja (The Tribe/Pleme)