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21st Century Cinema

Cleaners

1h 18m

Directed by Glenn Barit • 2019 • Philippines
Starring Ianna Taguinod, Leomar Baloran, Julian Narag

At a Catholic high school in the Philippine city of Tuguegarao, a rambunctious batch of students rebel against all expectations to be clean: a germaphobe is tested by a bout of uncontrollable diarrhea; a trio of emos are forced to perform Tinikling (a traditional Philippine folk dance) with a normie; an uncircumcised boy asks an ostracized pregnant girl to prom; and the mayor’s son is tempted by his father’s corrupt example while running for youth-council chairman. Every frame of filmmaker Glenn Barit’s CLEANERS was xeroxed, hand-colored with highlighters, and then rescanned, giving each of its angst-drenched emotions a singular handmade texture and the whole film a bone-deep nostalgia for growing up in the Philippines in the early aughts.

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