Photography: Bianca Catbagan
Award-winning filmmaker, actress, and storyteller Rachel Leyco has always leaned into the intersections of pain, humor, and resilience. With her latest short film, Thank You for Breaking My Heart, premiering at LA Shorts International Film Festival in July, she transforms heartbreak into something surreal, tender, and unexpectedly empowering.
The film follows Mahal, a heartbroken artist who seeks to end her life through the Administration of Souls in Sorrow (ASS), a darkly comic bureaucracy that oversees life and death. As Mahal navigates this strange system, she is forced to confront her past relationship through nostalgic home videos that blur the line between memory and fantasy. For Leyco, the film grew from personal truths about love, grief, and healing.
“Heartbreak was the starting point,” she shares. “Healing isn’t linear, and I wanted to explore mental health through all kinds of relationships: romantic, familial, platonic, and the one we have with ourselves. Grief and humor often share the same space, so I leaned into that duality, turning pain into a path toward healing.”
Casting herself as the lead was more than an artistic choice. It was a declaration. “Hollywood still rarely gives leading roles to queer, brown-skinned Asian women, so I gave myself that opportunity,” Leyco explains. “For me, centering morenas and Filipinas as leading ladies isn’t just representation. It’s power.”
That sense of reclamation pulses through the film’s world-building. The “Administration of Souls in Sorrow,” or “ASS” as Leyco cheekily abbreviates it, began as a thought experiment: What if suicide required paperwork? By reframing a taboo subject through absurd humor, she created a space where levity softens the weight of despair. “I imagined it like the DMV, a place no one wants to go, but sometimes you have to,” she says. From that spark, a surreal yet deeply human world unfolded.
Memory plays a crucial role in Thank You for Breaking My Heart. Leyco describes it as “both the wound and the remedy.” Through Mahal’s memories of her ex-girlfriend Tala, the film shows how the past can haunt, heal, and even reshape itself. “I’m fascinated by how we reframe memories over time. They shift, blur, and sometimes become more beautiful or more painful than they were in the moment. Art gives me the chance to reimagine those moments in ways that feel more empowering than the original story.”
This ethos also fuels Empowerhouse, Leyco’s production company, which champions stories that uplift women, queer communities, and people of color. “I’m drawn to narratives that challenge stereotypes, embrace complexity, and say, you’re allowed to be messy and still worthy,” she says. “Our mission is to highlight underrepresented stories by underrepresented voices.”
Her vision is already expanding beyond Thank You for Breaking My Heart. With the support of a CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment) grant, Leyco is developing Milk & Honey, a Filipino-led short film inspired by her mother’s journey as a nurse who immigrated to the United States in the 1990s. The story pays tribute to the resilience of Filipina nurses, whose sacrifices continue to shape American healthcare. “This film honors our ancestors, our healthcare workers, and the strength of our community,” she says.
Leyco is no stranger to blending joy with difficult truths. Her queer AAPI web series CRAZY, which premiered at Outfest LA, explored mental health and friendship with humor and heart, garnering support from organizations like Asian Mental Health Project and NAAPIMHA, and amassing tens of thousands of views online.
Whether she is acting, directing, writing, or producing, Leyco embraces the multi-hyphenate life. “Each role feeds the other: acting sharpens my directing, directing informs my writing, and writing deepens my acting. I love being a multi-hyphenate filmmaker and artist. I own it, and I believe it’s my superpower.”
For Leyco, the mission is clear: to create work that resonates, disrupts, and empowers. And her advice to emerging queer AAPI filmmakers reflects that clarity: “Your voice matters. Don’t dilute it to fit someone else’s idea of what’s ‘marketable.’ Find your community, remember who you’re making art for, and don’t give up. Most importantly, don’t forget to have fun.”
With Thank You for Breaking My Heart, Rachel Leyco proves that even in the rawest places of grief, there is room for beauty, laughter, and transformation.
Follow Rachel on Instagram at @rachel.leyco and learn more about Empowerhouse.
