The Cleaners

Although shot like a noir thriller, there is nothing fictional about this film: it merely exposes a familiar reality as dark and sinister. In a grey office building in Manila, men and women carry out the Internet’s dirty work—screening content on social networks. The rules are ostensibly simple but playing by them requires mental fortitude. After all, nobody is keen on watching Isis executions, self-mutilation, or coerced pornography day after day. Testimonies of the heroes of this powerful documentary give rise to a complex and critical depiction of Google, facebook, and their likes: their pretense to redefine the limits of freedom of speech often leads to the creation of an insufferable reality.