In an advertising agency in downtown Prishtina, 20 female cleaners are sitting in a focus group, sharing thoughts on a new bleach product the agency is branding. Fatime, a domestic worker from Prishtina outskirts, shares a personal story, which draws the attention of Elvira, the charismatic head of the agency. She offers her a job as a cleaner at the firm. Fatime has been waiting for this offer for years. She has grown emotionally exhausted by contract-less work in other people’s homes, cleaning or nannying their children. So she eagerly accepts. One thing leads to another, and Fatime is at a luxury private residence in the Albanian coast, changing bandages on Elvira’s body recovering from liposuction. Elvira is adamant: nobody must know. Fatime is loyal. She doesn’t even tell her family. Having a powerful, successful woman dependent on her caring touch, instills in her a devotion she feels only for her closest friends. Unaware, she crosses a line. An incident tarnishes this newfound friendship so badly that Fatime, the believer of cleanliness, the expert stain remover, cannot seem to know how to bleach out. Her truth is simply not a valid currency in a world where what she perceives as a friendship is just an illusion created by manipulative dynamics of social class.

Becoming a mother taught me that if I wanted to make films I needed a substitute. Having a nanny granted me a front seat to the lives of women who step in for you, and by doing so risk systematic exploitation. Because after all, they are contract-less workers serving within your confined private life.
Bleach is an intimate drama focused on two very different women who are unlikely to meet in any other circumstance but the one where services are provided and purchased. However, a sudden bond paints a dual gaze which examines women’s dynamic when they feel unwatched. Fatime and Elvira engage in a complex interaction shaped by class, power and tension.