the-cleaners-FIGRA_2019

THE CLEANERS

THE CLEANERS

De Hans Block et Moritz Riesewieck – 85 min | Allemagne – 2018

SALLE 7 - MERCREDI 13 MARS - 13H45

Image : Axel Schneppat et Max Preiss
Montage : Philipp Gromov, Markus CM Schmidt et Hansjörg Weißbrich
Production : Gebrueder Beetz Filmproduktion
Co-production : Grifa Filmes
Avec la participation d’ARTE France, de Motto Pictures, NHK, BBC, GEO Television, SVT, RTS, ORF, DR, RSI, Yes Docu, YLE, VGTV, RTV, LRT, ProPublica
Et le soutien de Creative Europe - Media Program of the European Union, Ancine, FSA, BRDE, Medienstiftung NRW et Blue Ice Docs


SYNOPSIS

Rencontre de cinq « nettoyeurs numériques » dont le travail est de supprimer le contenu « inapproprié » qui circule sur le net. Un « nettoyeur » doit observer et évaluer chaque jour des milliers d’images et de vidéos souvent très troublantes. Ce qui entraîne des répercussions psychologiques durables.
Comment faire pour que les réseaux sociaux restent des espaces d’expression libre mais qu’ils ne deviennent ni des forums censurés, ni des espaces non réglementés ? Les « nettoyeurs » ont du mal à accepter ce nouveau paradigme déconcertant. Passant d’une vision sociale de « village planétaire » à une toile de fake news et de radicalisation, le film illustre la montée et la chute de l’idéologie utopique des réseaux sociaux.

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.

HANS BLOCK

Hans Block (*1985) is a German theater director, filmmaker and musician. He studied music (drums) at the University of Arts in Berlin and theater directing at Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. In 2014, Block became resident director and member of the Artistic Direction of the Box at Schauspiel Frankfurt. Productions there included “Mysterien – Unberechenbar werden” by Knut Hamsun, “Aufzeichnungen aus dem Kellerloch” by Fjodor Dostojewski and “Flankufuroto” by Bonn Park. In 2014, he was invited to the festival “Radikal Jung“ at the Münchner Volkstheater with his production “Austrian Psycho,” which was awarded the Best Production Prize of the festival. His radio drama production “Don Don Don Quijote - Attackéee“ was awarded as best production of Prix Marulić 2015. Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck work collaboratively under the label “Laokoon” named after the legendary Trojan seer who revealed the Trojan Horse as a dangerous fraud. In their works Riesewieck and Block aim to reveal the Trojan horses of our time. Their projects which they develop in various media forms start with investigations and end up as striking, complex narrations.

MORITZ RIESEWIECK

Moritz Riesewieck (*1985) is a German essay author, scriptwriter, theater- and film director. He studied theater directing at Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. Before he studied some semesters of Economics as a fellow of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and worked as assistant director at Schaubuehne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin. In 2014 he staged the piece “Woyzeck” by Georg Buechner in Mexico City. His Spanish / German graduation production was invited to renowned Heidelberg Play Market. In 2016 Moritz Riesewieck was granted the state of Berlin’s Elsa Neumann Scholarship for his innovative theater works which were shown at festivals in Berlin and Hamburg and most recently at Theater Dortmund. In the same year Riesewieck presented a lecture performance about digital cleansing at republica Berlin and at Berliner Theatertreffen. His essay “Digital Dirt Work” was published by German publishing house dtv in September 2017.