»The Cleaners«Photo: © Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion
»The Cleaners«, Photo: © Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion 
»The Cleaners«Photo: © Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion
»The Cleaners«, Photo: © Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion 
»The Cleaners«Photo: © Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion
»The Cleaners«, Photo: © Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion 
»The Cleaners«Photo: © Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion
»The Cleaners«, Photo: © Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion 
»The Cleaners«Photo: © Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion
»The Cleaners«, Photo: © Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion 
 

The Cleaners

von Hans Block und Moritz Riesewieck
Regie und Buch: Hans Block und Moritz Riesewieck

When you post something on the web, can you be sure it stays there? Enter a hidden shadow industry of digital cleaning, where the Internet rids itself of what it doesn‘t like. Who is controlling what we see... and what we think?

Enter a hidden third world shadow industry of digital cleaning, where the Internet rids itself of what it doesn‘t like. Here we meet five »digital scavengers« among thousands of people outsourced from Silicon Valley whose job is to delete »inappropriate« content of the net. In a parallel struggle, we meet people around the globe whose lives are dramatically affected by online censorship. A typical »cleaner« must observe and rate thousands of often deeply disturbing images and videos every day, leading to lasting psychological impacts.

Yet underneath their work lie profound questions around what makes an image art or propaganda and what defines journalism. Where exactly is the point of balance for social media to be neither an unlegislated space nor a forum rife with censorship? »The Cleaners« struggles to come to terms with this new and disconcerting paradigm. Evolving from a shared social vision of a global village to a web of fake news and radicalization, the film charts the rise and fall of social media’s utopian ideology.

Direction & Camera, Text: Hans Block, Moritz Riesewieck
Sound: Karsten Höfer
Music: Paradox Paradise (John Gürtler, Jan Miserre, Lars Voges) 
Cut: Philipp Gromov, Hansjörg Weißbrich, Markus CM Schmidt
Production: gebrueder beetz filmproduktion

In Coproduction with: Grifa Filmes, WDR, NDR, rbb, VPRO, I Wonder Pictures

Duration: ca. 88 minutes

Kinostart: 17. Mai 2018