Third Act directed by Tadashi Nakamura and Desync directed by Minerva Navasca will open the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival which will take place from November 6 – 16, 2025 in Philadelphia, USA.

Opening Night
November 6, 2025 | Thursday | Moore College of Art & Design | 7:00 pm

Third Act by Tadashi Nakamura – USA | 2025 – 91 minutes

Generations of artists call Robert A. Nakamura “The Godfather of Asian American film,” but his son, Tad, calls him Dad. As the filmmaking son of a filmmaking legend, Tad uses the lessons his dad taught him to decipher the legacy of an aging man who was a child survivor of the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans, a successful photographer who gave it up to tell his own story, an activist at the dawn of a social movement—and a father whose struggles have won his son freedoms that eluded Japanese Americans of his generation. As Parkinson’s Disease clouds his memory, Tad sets out to retrieve his story—and in the process discovers his own. 

Trailer:

Desync by Minerva Navasca – USA | 2023 – 12 minutes

Ana, a young Filipina filmmaker, shoots a re-enactment of a fight she once had with her mother – a fight brought on by mutual refusals to communicate. Spurred on by the obsessive need for perfection, Ana “fixes” the fight by rewriting every veiled insult into a chance for forgiveness. As her perfect story diverges further from the reality of what happened, she begins to realize what her mom has been trying to say all along.

Trailer:

For more information, please visit: https://paaff2025.eventive.org/welcome