Legal aliens

Singapore is regarded as a haven for migrant workers. But a film festival, Migrant Voice, which began on September 11 showed it is not so.

“We want to give migrant workers a platform to speak and encourage creative discourse,” said president Shaun Teo.

Films such as Durai and Saro, a fictional story of a platonic relationship between an Indian worker and a domestic help from the Philippines, aims at humanising the faceless mass that many Singaporeans have come to see as “others”, said director-producer Prema Menon.

Jenny Chan, another filmmaker, recounted the story of a Bangladeshi worker, who told her, “Our families pawn land and jewellery to send us here. They have not seen the hard labour and suffering we undergo here.”