In a dark and damp karaoke bar on Joo Chiat Road in Singapore, an American film director barks instructions to a group of extras plucked from the city’s expat community: “You’re in a sleazy bar chatting to pretty Asian girls while drinking beer… you’ve probably got the easiest job in this film,” he says.

It is halfway through an ambitious but exhilarating film shoot. The film is called Remittance. It was shot in Singapore in 2013 on a miniscule budget of $50,000, and it follows the life of Marie, a foreign domestic worker from the Philippines — played by Angela Barotia — as she struggles to cope with demanding employers, long hours of work, and separation from her family.

Singapore has around 250,000 domestic workers, who cook, clean, look after children and the elderly and do many other household chores. Keen to document their hidden lives, Daly and fellow director Joel Fendelman originally intended to make a documentary. They interviewed hundreds of migrant women and men from across Asia working as maids, bar girls, waitresses, construction workers and sailors.

“The national narrative of these women [in the Philippines] is that they are heroes: they go off and bring in 10% of the national economy. It’s huge,” says the director, Patrick Daly.

In all they spent about a year “hanging out” with migrant workers — going on dates, attending birthday parties, going to church, sitting through NGO classes — to better understand their lives.

“Throughout the entire process we were very aware that we were two middle class white American guys trying to tell a story about women from the developing world — how could we possibly understand what their lives were like? — these were critiques we anticipated at the beginning,” says Daly.

Remittance: the official trailer.

Remittance has only three professional actors in it and an ensemble cast of mainly Filipina domestic workers and laborers, who responded to casting calls through Singapore NGOs. Angela works full-time as a domestic worker. Yolanda Bermas, another cast member, gave up her weekly day off to star in the film. She first came to Singapore in 2002 to save up enough money to open a piggery back home in Bacacay, Albay province, in the Philippines.

She found the first few years in Singapore very difficult. Shortly after starting work her husband left her for another woman, meaning she would have to raise her daughter, now 14 years old, on her own.

Yolanda wanted to leave Singapore and come home but her mother convinced her it was best to remain working so she could continue to earn.

“I only planned to work here for two years but my circumstances— or rather my husband’s unfaithfulness — changed my plans,” she says through a series of Facebook exchanges. “My friend told me about the film Remittance — she gave me an address and an audition time. I introduced myself [to Joel and Patrick], told them how long I had been working in Singapore, how my employer treated me, what I do on Sundays, and about my family. They explained the concept of the movie. I think I was lucky to be chosen.”