Sulo: The Philippine Studies Initiative at NYU and the NYU Espacio de Culturas are pleased to present an evening of films by acclaimed indie writer/director/composer Glenn Barit, as part of the Visions/Panawin film series.
Date: Friday, March 14, 2025 at 6:30 pm
Venue: NYU Espacio de Culturas | 53 Washington Sq S, NYC 10012
RSVP Link: https://bit.ly/panawin-s25
This film screening is free and open to the public. Registration is required.
Cleaners (2019, 1h 18m)
That unusual experimental film that’s also warmly accessible, CLEANERS follows the often hilarious coming-of-age of a group of high school students tasked to clean the school after class hours. Set in the director’s northern provincial town of Tuguegarao, the students try to navigate ethical contradictions in school and in the larger world.
Shorts:
Maybe Aliens / Aliens ‘Ata (2017, 7m) — Cinemalaya – NETPAC Jury Award; Sinag Maynila – Best Short Film; FAMAS – Grand Jury Prize
A film shot entirely with a drone, two young brothers try to understand and cope with loss and separation.
Who Rents There Now? / Nangungupahan (2018, 12m) — a Cinemalaya finalist
An experimental film that interweaves the lives of tenants who occupy a small studio apartment through different points in the apartment’s existence.
Before Life Happens / Yung Huling Swimming Reunion (2023, 20m)
Cleaner’s cast of characters meet for a swimming reunion after their first year of college.
Curator’s Notes:
As is customary when using Pilipino for the opening title cards, Philippine films are credited as “Isang Pelikula ni…” / “A Film by…” such-and-such a director, the preposition “ni” being singular. Glenn Barit bucks convention by always tagging his films as “Isang Pelikula nila Glenn Barit” with the plural “nila.” This reflects Barit’s forthright recognition of film as a collaborative art created by multiple co-authors. The somewhat self-effacing “nila” also betokens a soft-spoken humility in Barit’s approach to life and his craft, a disposition that lies beneath the daring DIY stylistics of his films. Could the use of the plural “nila” also refer to the many personas an artist has to summon from inside, among them, as in the case of Barit, as writer, director, composer, dreamer, and madman?
Barit’s films are always cited for their unusual and experimental form and aesthetics. The short film Maybe Aliens is completely shot from the point of view of a stationary drone, as it tells the story of two boys, tiny creatures in a silent landscape, who try to come to terms with the departure of their mother. She has to leave them for work as an Overseas Foreign Worker, that double-edged sword that has both sustained and devastated Filipino families across a country rich in resources but just as flush in political corruption and mismanagement.
The short film Who Rents There Now? interweaves lives and stories of tenants who have occupied a studio apartment at different points in time and likely never met each other outside the confines of the film. The admixture of disparate lives brings up themes on personal travails in a broken economic system or on the impermanence and insecurity of life in general.
Cleaners, Barit’s full-length feature, is his most experimentally daring. A story set and shot in Barit’s Catholic high school in the northern Luzon town of Tuguegarao, and developed by Barit in National Artist Ricky Lee’s famed scriptwriting workshop, its filming concept came up against widespread skepticism early on. Barit and his team would shoot the film digitally, then export individual images at eight frames a second, which would then be printed on black-and-white photocopy paper. Main characters in the individual sheets that are at times intentionally crumpled would be colored by hand using magic markers. The xerox sheets would then be scanned and reassembled into the final film.
Barit submitted the film concept for a seed grant of USD 30K to QCinema, which, under its formidable artistic director Ed Lejano (who holds a Certificate in Film from NYU), is one of the most important film festivals in the Philippines’ burgeoning indie film scene. Barit managed to overcome QCinema’s skepticism by shooting and executing two proof-of-concept sample snippets. The gamble paid off. The film’s unusual form and tempo evoke feelings both elegiac and futuristic, specific to its 2008 Tuguegarao setting yet universal in its often wildly hilarious, off-kilter depiction of youth. Played by a cast of non-professionals with a soundtrack using music by local emo bands of the period, Cleaners has become an instant cult classic in the Philippines and among cinephiles elsewhere, including American subscribers of the Criterion Channel.
The premise of Cleaners derives from a not uncommon practice in the Philippines where classes are divided into teams charged with tidying up and cleaning classrooms after class. This enables under-funded schools to stretch their budgets but also to inculcate discipline and team spirit in students.
With cleaning in their consciousness, characters in the film confront issues of cleanliness, from the personal and physical to the more social and political, in a country where loyalty to family and region feeds into the country’s systemic corruption.
Before switching to Film Production at the University of the Philippines Film Institute, Barit was working towards a degree in the more technologically-focused Management Information Systems. His penchant for technology mixed with cinema’s need to reach out with emotion have resulted in films that are both experimental and quirkily relatable. In the case of Cleaners, Barit cites that ur-experimenter, George Melies and his early silent film A Trip to the Moon as a major influence. (Others include Wong Kar Wai and Barit’s cinematic hero, Edward Yang).
Though the experimental form is often one of the attributes that reviewers note about his films, Barit insists that it’s the story that must always dictate the form, and that this has always been the case with him.
The short film Before Life Happens, with its anti-glossy home-movie quality, is Barit’s least overtly experimental film thus far. The Hong-Kong and US-based company Kani picked up Cleaners for US distribution and gave Barit an honorarium for the commentary he was to record for the Blu-ray release. Barit did record the commentary but used the honorarium to shoot a micro-sequel to Cleaners, almost as a lark, with the actors wearing colors corresponding to the magic-marker hues of their roles in Cleaners. Reuniting after some time in college, they have become more reflective and wistful about the realities of life beyond the confines of the Catholic high school and more honest about their true selves. The death of a classmate permeates the reunion, along with a growing consciousness of loss and impermanence; yet the Filipino ebullience of their more youthful days abides, as valid a riposte as any to life’s insanities.
— Gil Quito
Awards for Cleaners (2019)
- QCinema International Film Festival: Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Audience Choice Award
- Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino: Best Film, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, Best Ensemble Performance, Best Musical Score, Best Production Design
- Young Critics Circle: Best First Feature, Achievement in Sound and Aural Orchestration
- FAP Awards: Best Sound Design
- FAMAS Awards: Best Screenplay