Clean With Me (After Dark)
Dozens of women clean their homes in front of YouTube cameras, creating a seemingly perfect picture of everyday life, behind which loneliness, frustration and the burden of being the “ideal” homemaker gradually emerge.
What lies behind the online videos in which women spend hours scrubbing floors, organizing closets and making their homes spotless? Gabrielle Stemmer dives into the peculiar world of the YouTube phenomenon “Clean With Me,” constructing her film entirely from footage found online. What initially appears to be a collection of innocent tutorials and glimpses of fulfilled domestic life gradually reveals a very different story – one of loneliness, isolation, dissatisfaction and the pressures attached to being a woman and a wife.
Using the aesthetics of the computer screen and precise, at times almost voyeuristic editing, the film looks beneath the surface of these immaculate homes. Out of a seemingly banal internet trend emerges a surprising portrait of women trying to regain a sense of control over their lives – if only through layer upon layer of foam, cleaning products and order.
The film will be screened together with I Often Think of Hawaii.
Gabrielle Stemmer
After a master’s in literature, Gabrielle Stemmer joined the editing department of La Fémis, from which she graduated in 2019. During her schooling, she directed CLEAN WITH ME (AFTER DARK) (2020), her graduation film, which won the special jury prize at the Clermont-Ferrand FF. In addition to her work as an editor, Gabrielle focuses her personal projects on internet archives, the theme of misleading images and the question of the female model.
Reżyseria: Gabrielle Stemmer
