Cleaners is a coming-of-age film written and directed by Glenn Barit. Set in Tuguegarao City circa 2008, highschool classroom cleaners of a Catholic school deal with different societal pressures and standards of being pure, proper, and clean. These are manifested through a variety of personal and societal issues, including the “taboo” of pooping in school and dirty family politics.
A particularly interesting feature of the film is the visual style. More than 40,000 frames will be printed, photocopied, colored with highlighters, and scanned before being assembled back again digitally.
Video embed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyl8j-EF_t8
The imperfection of the photocopier’s output contrasts the usual glossy look of today’s films, further highlighting the theme of breaking free from the societal norms of perfection. The style also conveys a school project feel, befitting of a film centered on highschoolers.
The film is an official entry to the Asian New Wave Competition of the QCinema International Film Festival on October 13 to 22. With post-production currently underway, the team needs to pay for fair wages and operation costs incurred by the highlighting and scanning processes.
It is also the team’s goal to bring their actors and interns from Tuguegarao to the film’s gala premiere. Thus, they’ll be needing funds for their transportation and accommodation as well.
If you’d like to help fund the project or check out more details, click through this link here.
