The wealth and opulence of the Gulf States in the Middle East were built on the labour of cheap labour from foreign countries. In 2009, four young Nepali men left their villages for the Arab Gulf, their stories, like those of a few million that keep the country afloat, often disillusioning and, as often, empowering, captured in the film In Search of the Riyal.

The Riyalists traces the trajectories of the four men since then and over 12 years, a chronicle of Nepali labour migration, illuminating the experiences for up to 3 million Nepalis who have been in the Gulf at any given time in the last 3 decades.