By David Dent
Documentary maker Dan Asma’s feature debut combines assembled footage, interviews and a whole lot more that gradually builds into a mini sci fi masterpiece.
Devin Adams (Asma, uncredited) is a retired academic who, when we first meet him, declares that he has no memory and is stricken with a disease which has deformed his face. How he got to this position is the subject of this movie – it pretty much plays like a documentary – as the ex-professor takes possession of a series of tapes which helps him piece the past together.
The chronology of the movie, contained in the time stamps on the recordings, is an important guide to what we’re seeing; the assembled footage contains information gleaned from his ex-wife Kate (Nicole Jones), a guy called Charlie (Keaton Asma, Dan’s son) who’s attached to a mysterious cult organisation called the Church of Heaven’s Light. There are also journals, wild theories about alien intelligence, and a strange storage container that arrives in a mountain location and provides a locus for the events.
Asma’s documentary background is essential to his arrangement and accumulation of the diverse facts, theories and evidence to make up the story. Over the course of the movie’s slender 75 minutes, the viewer’s mind is given quite the workout, but Tribe doesn’t stint on the weird Lovecraftian imagery either.
This is a really clever movie, constantly entertaining and incredibly creative, given what’s probably a very small budget. I loved every minute of it – possibly one of my top films of 2025.
Tribe screened as part of Grimmfest 2025.
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