People who have been waiting to see the most revered little gem of 2019 will now get the chance to stream it at the comforts of their home. QUEZON CITY, September 13, 2021, Upstream finally gives CLEANERS the worldwide release it deserves starting on September 18. Hailed as "one of the best Filipinos films of 2019" by CNN Philippines Life®, Glenn Barit's debut film was also announced as Top 1 in the Top 25 Films of 2021 by the popular film website Letterboxd. Trusted film critic Philbert Dy calls it "a little miracle of a film".
CLEANERS is a coming-of-age anthology film about high school student cleaners from a rural catholic school in 2008. These students struggle with different societal pressures of being clean, proper, and pure while they discover that the world is dirty and superficial to begin with. The stories range from the taboo of pooping in school to navigating local political dynasties.
Watch the trailer.CLEANERS is a stop motion film made from photocopying each frame on paper. Around 34,560 sheets of paper were used. All protagonists were also manually colored using different colors of highlighters.
Glenn Barit is a 28-year old filmmaker from the Philippines. He is also a sound designer and musical scorer. He uses elements of play in his works to ease the burden of filmmaking as well as to bring in to light different social issues.
His film "Aliens Ata" a short film shot entirely with a drone, has screened in local and international festivals and won him the NETPAC Jury Prize in the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival 2017. And his latest short, "Nangungupahan" a film about different people living in the same apartment through different points in time, also premiered in Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival 2018.
The cast includes Ianna Taguinod, Leomar Baloran, Julian Narag, Carlo Mejia, Gianne Emira Rivera, Allan Gannaban, Charise Mabbonag, and Andrei Marquez.
Aside from Winning the Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Audience Choice Award when it premiered in the QCinema International Film Festival 2019, CLEANERS continued its streak in 2020 by 6 major awards in the Pista Ng Pelikulang Pilipino including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Production Design.
Upstream believes that making local films more accessible to a global Filipino audience and will undoubtedly impact the growing community of arthouse moviegoers looking for homegrown cinema.
CLEANERS will start streaming on September 18.
