To request more information on the film or to arrange an interview, please contact Tiffany Shlain via email or phone: 415.380.0881

Awards and Distinctions

2006 Indiewire's Sundance Critic's Choice

2006 Winner: Best Short Documentary, Nashville Film Festival

2006 Winner: Directors Choice Award, Black Maria Film Festival

2006 Winner: Audience Award, Ann Arbor Film Festival

2006 Winner: Best Historical Film, San Francisco Women’s Film Festival

2007 Winner: Grand Jury Prize, Best Short Doc: Florida Film Festival

2007 Winner: Golden Star Award for Best Documentary Short

2007 Winner: Best Short Documentary: Warsaw Jewish Film Festival

2007 Winner: Best Contemporary Jewish Film: Warsaw International Film Festival of Jewish Motifs

2007 Winner: Best Documentary: LA Shorts Fest

2007 Winner: International Jewish Topics: Argentina International Jewish Film Festival

2008 Winner: Best Documentary Short: Cleveland International Film Festival

2008 Winner: Brothers Festival of Shorts, 3rd Prize

2008 Winner: Best Documentary West Chester Film Festival



"Tribe is a brilliant, irreverent, wry and buoyant film about an icon of American culture, the waspy Barbie doll and it's creator a Jewish woman. The film is a stunning achievement and one of this year's Black Maria Film Festival biggest and most worthy hits. I love this film and so do audiences."

John Columbus,
Founder and Director, Black Maria Film Festival

The Tribe won the Director's Choice Award from the prestigious Black Maria Film Festival. This festival travels to 70 museums, theaters, colleges, libraries, film societies and community organizations across the country. They recently received a grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation to expand the festivals tour.

Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2006 Streetlamp Studios Daily Audience Award

The Tribe was chosen among 25 short and feature length films for the Streetlamp Studios Daily Audience Award at the 2006 Ann Arbor Film Festival. It played in a 1700 seat theater to an enthusiastic audience. This honor was made even more special by the fact that Detriot is the hometown of Tiffany's parents.

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Podcasts Interviews

NextBook Podcast: Barbie, Daughter of Ruth
Dec 15, 2006
Interview with Tiffany Shlain, Director/Producer/Co-Writer

Oy Mendele!
Nov 29, 2005
Podcast interview with Tiffany Shlain and Ken Goldberg

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Press Highlights

"The Tribe is a smart, funny 18-minute short directed by Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain."

-New York Times

"Jews of all ages should seek out The Tribe, a short that makes the convincing, tongue-in-cheek case that Barbie is our ultimate assimilated American Jew."

- New York Magazine

Read the full article...

Peter Coyote wryly narrates the cleverly written and edited piece that shares a similar smart tone with Shlain's "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," a meditation on a woman's right to choose.”

-Los Angeles Times

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"Forget Philip Roth; if you want a glimpse of the history of Jewish assimilation in 20th-century America, look no further than this documentary about the woman that created the ultimate expression of the blonde, blue-eyed ideal, Barbie.”

-Flavorpill, LA

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"a funny, often self-deprecating and dazzlingly collage-style documentary…”

-Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles

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"The genius of this movie is that 15 minutes is not all you get. As most DVDs come with extras such as deleted scenes, bios, and those nerdy waste-of-your-time easter eggs, The Tribe gets more organic and social with "The Unorthodox Discussion Toolkit" that includes flash cards and the "Guide from the Perplexed." This extremely resourceful guide is invaluable with a shelf life of forever and the cards are perfect for a Friday night after Kiddush and Challah with friends and family.”

-The Los Angeles LAist Movie Review 3.29.06

Read the full article...

"By focusing on big, universal themes - the nature of tribes, self-identity and social integration - and by avoiding prescriptions or pat answers while raising plenty of questions, 'The Tribe' manages to be smart and appealing."

-The Jerusalem Post

Read the full article...


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Press Articles

St. Louis Today
March, 2009- Barbie Turns 50

Financial Post
Dec, 2008 - Films and the Web: A New World Order

Indie Filmmaking Magazine
April, 2008 - The Distribution Frontier

CNN
April 9, 2008 - "Mobile screens seek portable content"

Sundance Institute
January 27, 2008 - "Live at Sundance with Tiffany Shlain, Jason Silverman from Wired Magazine, and David Straus from Withoutabox"

Sundance Institute iTunes Podcast
January 25, 2008 - "Go It Alone: Digital Distribution for the Indie Filmmaker"

Huffington Post
January 19, 2008 - "First Person Artist: Barbie as the Ultimate Muse"

October-November, 2007 - iTunes Press Highlights

Variety
November 2, 2007 - "Studios' digital dilemma"

Hollywood Reporter
October 30, 2007 - "Alternative distribution pushes dealmaking in new directions"

Jewish Telegraph Agency
October 26, 2007 - "The Tribe Hits #1 on iTunes"

San Francico Chronicle front page Datebook
Cool feature piece on our DIY adventures*
October 22, 2007 - "Web delivers new audience to short films"

NY Times
October 23, 2007 - "Facing Competition, iTunes Revs Up Its Film Section"

Jewlicious.com
September 1, 2007 - "Tribe: The Film -- On iTunes Oct 2"

Center for New Words
Sept 2007 - Tiffany Shlain on the Art of Creating

Jewish Filmmaker Magazine
Spring 2007 - Tiffany Shlain: Filmmaker Extraordinaire

Morning Call, Penn
March 10, 2007 - 'The Tribe,' a short film starring Barbie, speaks to Jewish roots in America

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
March 08, 2007 - Short 'The Tribe' stands out among festival offerings

Lifestyles Magazine
Summer 2006 - Tiffany Shlain Creative Trailblazer

The Jerusalem Post
May 27, 2006 - A Jewish girl in a Barbie world

Marin Independent Journal
May 12, 2006 - Such a nice Jewish doll

New York Magazine
May 1, 2006 - Tribeca by the Numbers

eFilmCritic.com
April 22, 2006 - Tribeca Film Festival 2006 Coverage Diary

Journal of Religion & Film
April 1, 2006 - Report from Sundance 2006: Religion in Independent Film

Artist Interviews Magazine
April 2006 - An Interview with Tiffany Shlain

Independents' day
March 2006 - Perhaps it's not surprising that Tiffany Shlain - the founder of the Webbys, an Internet awards show - would do Sundance in her own way.
In addition to the official venues showing her 18-minute short, "The Tribe," Shlain and her crew threw screening parties at the cabin they rented a few blocks from the Main Street. "The Tribe" uses the story of Ruth Handler, a Jewish-American woman who invented the Barbie doll, to focus on the history of the Jewish experience - both in America and abroad.
When Handler's obituary omitted the fact that she was Jewish, the filmmaker decided to make "The Tribe," which cleverly uses archival footage, animation and tight editing to deliver its universal message in a breezy style. "We did this film to trigger discussions about Jewish-American identity in the 21st century," said Shlain, of San Francisco. Marin County actor Peter Coyote narrated the short, which Shlain co-wrote with husband Ken Goldberg, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Daily Record
February 17, 2006 - Creativity in compact packages

Oakland Tribune
Feburary 3, 2006 - After 25 years, the Sundance Film Festival is still the place where independent film gets the buzz.

DVD Talk Review
February 2006, The Tribe (Short) - A jazz-like riff on the history of Barbie, the history of Jews, and Jewish Identity, The Tribe is an extremely entertaining and insightful film. Narrated expertly by Peter Coyote, The Tribe makes spiderweb-like connections between Barbie, the dolls inventor Ruth Handler (who was Jewish) and Jewish culture and identity. Both humorous and thought provoking, The Tribe successfully tackles an entire history of the Jewish culture in 18 minutes and poses the question "What does really it mean to be a member of a tribe?" Short films typically give you a glance into the talent and capabilities of a filmmaker, and based on The Tribe, I'd say Director Tiffany Shlain is definitely one to watch.

Herald News
February 2006 - At 18 minutes long, "Tribe" is a delightful parable about how the history of Barbie dolls mirrors modern American Jewish identity. The film is "very stream consciousness, very free associative," Columbus said. It leaps from inference to inference to land on punch lines the way a frog might hop from stone to stone to cross a river.

But the film is more than a collection of witty observations about Barbie dolls and American Jewry. It is a poignant essay about identity and belonging in the modern world - a truly slippery beast when you think about it.

From Sundance...
Sundance selected The Tribe as the subject of a mini-documentary called, “Follow The Filmmaker.” To watch our experience at the festival click here. A film strip will appear and you will see Tiffany with red lipstick and a black hat. If you click on this frame, it will say, "Follow a filmmaker." Double click on this and you watch Sundance's film on Tiffany and The Tribe.

The Sundance Insider
January 20, 2006 - The Tribe was featured in the Sundance Reporter on the opening day of the festival.

MTV News
January 2006 - MTV News attended one of our fireside chats and did a wonderful piece that can be found online at MTV Overdrive, its broadband channel.
To view, go to www.mtv.com
Then to "On TV" on the horizontal navigation bar
Then to "On TV on Overdrive" on the drop down menu. Then to "Movies"
Then you'll see The Tribe segment about the 5th one down.
Then MTV News: All Up in Sundance

San Francisco Chronicle
December 6, 2005 - A giant searchlight beamed from Van Ness to the heavens on the sidewalk outside Herbst Theatre for Saturday night's premiere of a 15-minute meditation on Jewishness, Tiffany Shlain's "The Tribe.''

The Forward
December 2, 2005 - Barbie's (Dyed) Jewish Roots

San Francisco Chronicle
November 30, 2005 - Blond, all-American and made by a Jew. A filmmaker inspects Barbie's deep roots.

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Press Releases

iTunes releases The Tribe
Oct 2, 2007
press release pdf

Tribeca Film Festival
April/May 2006
press release pdf

The Tribe Los Angeles Premiere at The Eqyptian Theater
March 30, 2006
press release pdf

Michael Kaminer Public Relations
December 3, 2005 | For Immediate Release
TURNING LENS ON BARBIE DOLL, FILMMAKER TIFFANY SHLAIN WRESTLES WITH JEWISH IDENTITY IN THE TRIBE press release pdf

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Press Photos for Download
click on the photos to download

Stills from the Film   Shots of the Crew

Stills from the Film

"The Tribe:Barbie & The Hora "
Art Directed by Gil Gershoni, Directed/Produced by Tiffany Shlain

Web (48kb jpg)
Print (3.6mb eps)

 

"Bar Mitzvah Barbie"
Art Directed by Gil Gershoni, Directed/Produced by Tiffany Shlain

Web (144kb jpg)
Print (6.9mb tif )

 

"Wrestling"
Image by Getty Images, Directed/Produced by Tiffany Shlain

Web (216kb jpg)
Print (6.9mb tif )


"Assimilation"
Art Directed by Gil Gershoni, Directed/Produced by Tiffany Shlain

Web (92kb jpg)
Print (6.9mb tif )

 

Shots of the Crew

Tribe Director: Tiffany Shlain

photo by
Megan Malia McGinity

Web (68kb jpg)

 

Tribe Film Crew:
Ken Goldberg (co-writer),
Tiffany Shlain (director, co-writer)
& Gil Gershoni (art director)

photo by
Megan Malia McGinity

Web (84kb jpg)
Print (38mb eps)

 

Ken Goldberg (co-writer),
Tiffany Shlain (director, co-writer)
& Gil Gershoni (art director)

photo by
Megan Malia McGinity

Web (184kb jpg)
Print (18mb eps)


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