Director Minerva Navasca on Stirring Discourses.
Unveiling stories behind "Desync," telling controversial stories, and finding gratitiude in the instability.
Where do I even begin with this week’s guest, Minerva Navasca? She’s a filmmaker who doesn’t just tell stories—she unearths the deepest corners of our humanity, exposing the fears and shames we carry in a world shaped by bias and unrealistic ideals. Minerva digs deep, pushes narratives to their limits, and delivers films that hit home every. single. time.
Her latest short, Desync, is making waves across Canada and beyond, with screenings at festivals like TIFF Next Wave and ReelWorld.
Congratulations on your film Desync, which is currently in its festival run and, at its core, a piece of art that resonates with so many immigrant experiences. In this moment, how do you see yourself as a filmmaker?
That’s a good question. I don’t have a concrete answer to define myself as a filmmaker. I just know I want to create work that stirs larger discourses on repressed subjects, doing so with compassion and empathy. Especially for us, as people of colour in creative spaces, our narratives have long been governed and dominated by the West. I know my films will never be perfect representations of myself or my culture because, inevitably, there are blind spots in my thinking. I also recognize that our stories, even down to their most minuscule details, are deeply different from one another.
And if no one tells the story, no one will know it.
What subject matters are most important to you in your work?
I don’t know if I’ve depicted anything in my works that are too controversial, but it’s definitely something I want to further explore in the future. I always think: “What are the ugliest, darkest subject matters we can explore, but are afraid to do so due to fear of backlash or misrepresentation?” I mean, to go back to my previous point, people of color have endured a long history of being misrepresented and dehumanized in the media. So ultimately, I want to use film as a medium to communicate and self-investigate all these problems.
How has that shaped your own path towards filmmaking and your approach to exploring life in both its totality and intricate details?
As I try to explore things that feel shameful to me, or that society deems as shameful, I think it would be a great disservice to the narrative and story if I were not to unravel that fully.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by shame?
Shame is not something you’re born with. I’m fascinated by this social construct and its ability to infiltrate our consciousness and subconsciousness. And of course, that comes with a lot of responsibility to make sure what I’m showing on screen is representative of my people, and that it’s a safe environment for everyone to observe, critique, and reflect upon their own experiences.
What you just mentioned reminds me of Kamayan, one of your first projects in film school, which reminds me of the absurdity and complexity of internalized shame caused by colonization. Would you say it’s a statement on cultural repatriation—on reclaiming what colonization has taken away, as you’ve mentioned?
Kamayan is certainly the very first film I made that centered my Filipino culture and identity in general, and I think it was the very start of my awareness on the larger discourse of our cultures being narrated by the oppressors, and what it means to our community.
I think it’s a satirical approach—positioning the image of your father eating a feast with his hands, an integral practice in many cultures worldwide, against an archive of a Western commercial teaching the “correct” eating etiquette.
Yeah, I think it’s almost like mocking this supposed “civilized” way of eating and how it trickles down into other aspects of culture with a slightly comedic, cheeky tone. Making this Kamayan was the very beginning of my awareness.
I see film as an investigation into how I fit within the larger North American environment. Growing up, I wasn’t always aware of the things I was perhaps angry about or uncomfortable with. Only now am I beginning to explore that discomfort, bitterness, and those feelings in my everyday life—whether in relation to the West or even the Philippines’ political system.
Was the unspoken tension and longing—the brimming bitterness between the mother (Celine) and daughter (Ana) in Desync—something you grew up unaware of?
I think so. After my co-writer and associate producer, CS, and I laid out the script, we worked with a wonderful script editor who helped us hone in on the nuances of female arguments, which I think have their own particular intricacies and specificities.
What are the nuances you’re referring to?
There’s just so much weight in the unsaid, hostility and disappointment. There’s also a missed love that both Ana and Celine are trying to escape. I left home when I was 17, and at the time, I didn’t fully understand why. I blamed it on wanting to enjoy being young and finding my independence in college. That realization only came to me recently. There were moments at home that pushed me to leave, even though I knew my parents wanted me to stay. They just couldn’t articulate it. But for my own reasons, I couldn’t stay.
That’s something that ended up in the script of Desync without us even intending it. In the film, when the two women argue, Ana says she wants to go home—but home is in Toronto, not her mother’s home, the space she’s currently staying in. That subtle moment carries so much tension, and without missing a beat, Ana blames work as the reason she can’t stay.
It’s an uncomfortable memory to unearth, but it felt right for the story.
Walk me through your process of writing the script, given that it is a derivative of something so intimate and so personal to you.
Totally. The script was originally about a Chinese father-son relationship, which we later developed into a Filipino mother-daughter story. It was a very collaborative process with CS, as I mentioned before. We spent hours and hours talking about our upbringings and our respective relationships with our parents. From that, we began to discern the nuances of Filipino parenting, particularly the mother-daughter dynamic—how so much is kept beneath the surface until it inevitably bursts.
We also spent a lot of time diving into the history of the Philippines, examining the use of overwork and perfection as survival mechanisms–something you can see manifest in both Ana and Celine. It’s almost as if they’ve inherited a cultural trauma.
Ultimately, the most important thing for me when writing Desync was figuring out how to maintain empathy for Celine, the mother.
What do you mean by that?
I wanted to frame Celine in a light where she just wants to do the best for her children as a mother. And the only form of love she knows is to criticize them until they get it right.
Desync is ultimately grounded in the daughter’s narrative, and because we are so deep inside her headspace, we don’t get to see what Celine thinks. That’s the tricky part—trying to unsettle that.
There’s a scene where Ana leaves her home, and Celine stares straight into the camera with anger. What was the intention behind breaking the fourth wall?
When Ana stomps out of the house, she starts to slowly feel the rejection and a sense of guilt creeping over her. It’s overwhelming for her to even begin processing what has just happened. It was fitting to manifest this self-consumption in the fourth wall break.
The film creates striking contrasts—from set design to editing to color palettes—almost replicating the internal conversation Ana has with herself. How did you approach these elements to reflect this, almost spiralling interior?
Because the film jumps back and forth between Ana being at Celine’s house and being on set replicating that moment with her mom on camera, contrast was extremely important to establish clarity and the language of the film. We really prioritized differentiating the colour palettes and tones of each set.
For Celine’s home, we wanted the space to feel suffocating for Ana, so we filled it with a lot of houseplants and items to crowd the space and make it feel stuffed. The sound design was also crucial. It’s full, busy, and always beeping. If you listen carefully, there’s always an undercurrent of the stove bubbling and the chimes of the laptop buzzing, pulling Ana back to her work, away from Celine. There’s just a lot of stimuli in the home to overstimulate her.
Then when you eventually cut back to Ana being on set directing, it’s jarring.
Exactly. We wanted to capture the claustrophobia and the feeling of being trapped in Celine’s home, and then contrast that with the bareness—the almost sterile, blank canvas of her filming set. It was important for me that the audience feel that hollowness.
[Here is one of my favourite scenes from Desync.]
I find the setting of Desync intriguing. In a lot of Asian cultures, food is our love language. Why did you choose the kitchen and the act of making food as the main space of tension and outbursts between Ana and Celine?
That’s a really good question. When writing the script, we wanted to find a space that required lots of actions and movements. I think with cooking and collaborating to cook, there’s a lot of synchronicity involved in that. Also, in Asian cultures—at least from my experience—I’ve never been handed a recipe sheet, and that’s like an ongoing joke. We measure everything by hand, instinct, and our ancestors. Laughs
And so, there are many ways to get it right, but there are also many ways to get it wrong. Having an environment with a constant threat of invalidation provided a really good baseline for the tension that was going to unfold throughout the script.
I assume there were many challenges within and outside of your internal processing of these memories and weaving them into a narrative. What are some other challenges that came with making Desync?
I think independent filmmaking is already a great challenge in itself. But Desync was the best set I’ve ever been on and had the privilege to lead, and that’s all because I got to work with the best people, who I get to call my dear friends. But to go back to your point, constantly being under time pressure while juggling other shoots outside of Desync sometimes led me to neglect myself during the process.
When you're riding on adrenaline working on set, you feel invincible. But without eating and fueling yourself, you’ll be out of the game in seconds. It’s so important to stay well-fed and properly take care of your crew, actors, and everyone involved. So much of my directing process comes from a deeply personal space, and it's crucial that I’m not anxious or lost in my head all the time. If I was a wreck—having physical and emotional breakdowns on set—I wouldn’t be able to support anyone. And that’s completely irresponsible.
Now that Desync has gone from your mind, to script, to production, and into the world, what has been the best part about observing audience reception?
When we screened Desync at TIFF Next Wave, there was this audience member who came up to me afterwards and asked if they could have the screening link to Desync. Of course, I said yes, and they shared something that still brings me back to that day. They said, “I wanted to show my mom Desync because I want to start a conversation about our relationship.”
What was your reaction then?
I’m not sure. I just remember thinking to myself, “This person is so much braver than I ever will be.” I don’t think I’m able to start that kind of conversation at this point in my life. That interaction was a big pivot from my old perception, which was thinking that I needed these accolades and to reach a certain point in my professional career for my films to matter—or to be heard.
But they matter now. I think the idea that something I put out might or might not affect a relationship in real life is already a big milestone in my life, regardless of the scale of the project.
To circle back to the beginning of our conversation, you mentioned wanting to stir shit up through the act of filmmaking. What are some of the uncomfortable stories we can expect from you?
There's a project I'm trying to get off the ground called The Greatest Export, which will explore the labor export industry in the Philippines. This industry often centers around Filipina women, specifically mothers who go overseas to care for the elderly or work in the healthcare system. In doing so, they leave behind their own families. This idea came about a couple of summers ago when I was analyzing my tendencies in relationships and attachment styles, and really questioning where they came from. What I realized was that I have a lot of fears in intimate relationships, which stemmed from the absence of my mother from when I was 4 years old to 9 years old.
This project is an exploration of the different impacts of a parent leaving their children so suddenly and for such a long time. Upon researching labor export in the Philippines, I realized there are an overwhelming amount of stories about women who don’t come home for 20 years. And in the Philippines, and within my own community, it’s often framed as an act of love. It’s seen as a brave act to leave your family, country, and home to support people overseas.
While I acknowledge the bravery in this, I think we, as a community, tend to neglect the long-term effects: the ways in which this disrupts our connections, especially with those we are closest to.
For you, what’s the connection you think a child needs from their parent and/or guardian? Or, what did you need?
That’s a really good question. I’m not a parent and have never really had a conventional relationship with my parents. I mean, I don’t even know what a parent-child relationship is supposed to look like, nor should it be just one way because everyone’s circumstances are vastly different.
I just know that people need guidance, ultimately.
What do you mean by that?
I think for much of my life, I was placed in positions without much guidance, and I’m just now realizing the impacts and setbacks that have had on me. Even though everything is still afloat, I recognize and feel the emotional and mental disruptions they have on my daily life and my ability to make connections to people and the world around me.
What’s afloat for you right now?
We came from poverty, and that has impacted my parents and family to some extent. Even though I live a very, very privileged life compared to a lot of people in my family back home, it’s a difficult journey trying to grapple with that. So to answer your question, what has kept us all afloat are the values of hard work and resilience, the “put-your-head-down-and-work” mentality that I was taught to be proud of.
I’m only unpacking this now, and realizing how it has negatively affected all of us, even though it kept us afloat. For the majority of my life, hard work to the point of overwork was something that should be celebrated. That’s how we advance, how we decide, and how we have anything to show in our lives that we are, indeed, afloat.
But I’m unlearning all of that.
In times of uncertainty, especially with our interior selves as creatives, where do you go to find anchor to continue honing in your craft?
Everyone has their own definition of storytelling, what filmmaking feels like to them, and how they express their narratives. For me, I write stories from a deeply personal space, whether it’s directly from my own life or through experiences I witness by proxy. Whenever I’m in doubt, I just remind myself that the more I live life, the more new questions I’ll have for myself, which only fuels more stories for me to tell. And as I get to know myself more, the more intricacies and specificities I’m able to pinpoint and infuse into my art.
Another important thing is embracing life outside of my own narrative and learning from the people around me. My boyfriend has a ton of screenwriting books and has been recommending read after read. He consumes movies more than anyone I’ve ever met, and I think that’s so cool. Surrounding yourself with new materials and people who inspire you is what makes the journey so wonderful. I wouldn’t be where I am today if not for tagging along with people who are so much better than I am.
You’re so right. I love my people, and I’m always awestruck with their growth. They keep us hopeful.
So true. The relationships that I have bring me joy every day. Film is fucking tough, and it takes everything out of you to do this—the instability, the hours, and everything else. But amidst all of that, I’m grateful to find myself in a place now where I feel very secure and very supported by the people I hold close to me. That is a luxury. Knowing that you’ve got people in your corner makes you believe that something good is coming. And if everything is going to shit, it’s okay. Because I have them. I feel very lucky to be able to explore filmmaking.
We were dirt poor in the Philippines, and my parents weren’t sure how they were going to afford my education, especially since education there was privatized at the time. When I take a step back, the fact that I’m able to be here in Canada, receiving an education from a celebrated institution, and now traveling to places like New York, London, potentially Austria, and more—makes me so grateful.
That sense of gratitude, in itself, is what makes me so hopeful.
Minerva Navasca
Website: minervanavasca.com | Instagram: @minervanavasca | Email: minervanavasca@gmail.com
The Produced - Thanh Lieu
Instagram: @the.produced and @thanhliieu | Email: info@the-produced.com