Cover image via Remittance
Remittance is a movie that tackles the difficult circumstances of our Filipino domestic helpers and featured real-life maids as actors.
Recently, this movie won awards at the Brooklyn Film Festival, where over 100 films were shown said Coconuts Manila.
Remittance won certificates for Outstanding Achievement for an actress (Angela Barotia) and Screenplay (Patrick Daly and Joel Fendelman).
"We do have plans of showing it in the Philippines. We are doing out first screening at the World Premier Film Festival in Manila in early July. We are hoping to do a wider distribution after that point," says Daly in an interview of SAYS Philippines.
Here are the directors of Remittance, explaining the plot of the movie as they tried to raise funds back in 2013
"It is a crying shame that the girls who took part may not have their families see this film, which is in large part of the reason they wanted to take part," says Rob O'Brien, the expat journalist in Singapore who wrote a story about the Pinay maids in Singapore.
O'Brien also wrote about Remittance, which was primarily shot in Sinapore in 2013 with a meager budget of only $50,000.
"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," wrote O' Brien in his article.
"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."
Here are some behind-the-scenes from the movie:
The story revolved with Angela, who moved to Singapore in 2009 from Albay-Bicol (where she sold vegetables) so she could earn enough money to support her husband and two daughters.
Her boss allowed her to star in the film, "and even taking on a new worker for three months to allow her time to shoot."
However, organizers of the Singapore International Film Festival turned the movie down.
