Drafthouse Films Picks Up Cannes Award Winner The Tribe

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Leave it to Drafthouse Films to be one of the leaders in acquiring films that can’t easily be pigeonholed by genre or subject. The label’s latest pick up, The Tribe, continues this trend. A winner of multiple awards as part of the Cannes film festival Independent Critics’ Week, this Ukrainian release, in which its narrative is done through the use of sign language without the need of subtitles or voiceover narration, will be released in 2015.

Directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy and produced by Valentyn Vasyanovych and Iya Myslytska from Garmata Film Production, The Tribe‘s astonishingly intimate and raw depiction of disenchanted youth features a cast comprised entirely of non-professional, deaf actors including leads Grigory Fesenko as Sergey and Yana Novikova as Anna.

In an official statement, Drafthouse Films CEO Tim League acknowledged, “As I was watching The Tribe, the goosebumps on my arms quickly signaled that I was seeing something truly special.” League continued by saying, “Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy is a massive talent. I am confident that he will quickly become a world-renowned director, and I am excited and proud to be sharing his striking first feature with North America.”

Regarding his film Slaboshpytskiy said that he was “pleased to have created a universal film that audiences around the world can perceive in the same way, regardless of race, language or country. People laugh at the same parts and are horrified by the same parts. I think The Tribe is a truly universal movie in terms of language, and this makes me supremely happy.”

The Tribe
will screen in select theaters across North America in 2015 and will be released on a variety of VOD platforms and digital, DVD, and Blu-ray formats.