Emil Nava is one of the most in-demand music video directors in the world, having created over 100 visuals for the likes of Rihanna, Dua Lipa and Post Malone. With an oeuvre spanning some of the biggest releases of our time, there’s no doubt that you’ll have watched one of his creations accompanying a top hit.

His latest work sees the director unspooling his ideas across the big screen. He’s just released his first feature film, titled Snorkeling: a trippy, coming of age story that follows two protagonists as they experiment with a new hallucinogenic drug, and fall in love (called snorkeling, the drug is open to interpretation).

It’s a vibrant offering, replete with vivid washes of colour, and combines animation with the film format. Starring the two leads Daniel Zolghadri (as Michael) and Kristine Froseth (as Jameson), Snorkeling sees Nava return to the rave culture roots of his adolescence, and the wider film is part of his own healing journey.

It’s due to Snorkeling that I find myself on a Zoom call with Nava, following the screening that took place the week prior in London. He’s in Atlanta now, and as he joins he expresses sadness over the high levels of homelessness he’s witnessed there. It’s a sunlit day in Atlanta, and Nava is eager to talk.

The director was born in London in 1985, and later moved to Dorset, aged eight, as he was “getting into a lot of trouble”. It was in the small market town of Bridport that Nava started grappling with his mixed race identity. Born to an Afro-Mexican father and white mother, Nava found that in Bridport – a town that “lacked diversity” – he was perceived to be neither white nor Black.

“It was tough in a lot of ways,” he says. His dad was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and so home was a “wild environment” – one that was turbulent and energised. Surrounded by creativity, art was highly valued in the household; his mother was in a circus show and wrote for Cosmopolitan; his dad was a painter and an actor in The People Show. From a young age, Nava had a “big imagination”, creating stories and adventures in his mind. “I personally find it quite hard to be present,” he tells me, “like to be really, really present.”

He yearned to be an actor, like his father. Excelling in drama and PE, he had a penchant for physical activities, but didn’t feel so well aligned with academia. There was a feeling about music, too. For his first job, he worked in a kitchen. Making decisions in the moment forced Nava to be present, as he learned on his feet how to navigate fast-paced situations with a steep amount of pressure. “I just loved kitchens,” he recalls. “I loved the fire and the heat, and the service.”

It was during this time that Nava pursued DJing – mostly playing hard trance – and had his formative rave experiences. “I started raving really young,” he reminisces. “After a big service on a Friday night, we would load up into a little Ford Fiesta and head into the fields. We would drive down these tiny roads, all of us packed into this car, and then we would go to these raves that lasted all night. The raves would happen in a warehouse, and then you would be outside in the parking lot. We would go to the quarries after and have these after-parties, and then there were a few times where I would go straight to the kitchen.

I was doing a video a week. It was so high-octane and I was out every night. I took it right to the edge, and I got sober

“It gives me a lot of anxiety to think back to those times,” he admits, “but they were amazing, and they were euphoric, and they were definitely escapism for me.”

For some, the need to escape can derive from a sense of inner turmoil or dissatisfaction. This was the case for Nava, who felt a sense of loneliness and isolation growing up. “I have an issue with escapism,” he explains. “Growing up, I always wanted to escape. My dad once said to me, ‘Why are you always trying to escape?’ So I had a lot of issues with addiction, drugs, alcohol. I started incredibly young, dabbling in all sorts of different things. And then I only abused them and alcohol became a really dangerous drug for me.”

Working in the kitchen prepared him for a career as a music video director, a highly sociable field that requires people skills and diplomatic leadership. It’s an environment that often contains “a lot of different egos, a lot of different expectations”. He would go for drives, spending a day coming up with a music video idea. His success saw him move to LA during “a storm of work”.

“When you’re young and you’re angry, and you find success – there’s a lot happening,” he looks back. “I was doing a video a week. It was so high-octane and I was out every night. I took it right to the edge, and I got sober. It’s probably nine years ago now.”

Loneliness, Nava says, “can go on even into your adult life, even if you are not alone”. He continues, “I think it’s actually something that’s really embedded in you if it happens to you as a child.” The emotion has, in some ways, become a guiding principle for Nava; it’s the bedrock beneath his visual creations. “I’m very interested in what happens to us as a child,” he says, “how that informs us as we are adults – good and bad. A lot of things happened to me as a young person that caused me turmoil and pain and heartache, but it’s also been the things that have inspired me to create certain things weirdly. I did have a big feeling of loneliness growing up. I think that I was a lonely kid, you know?”

Some of this mood is evident in Nava’s videos. Take, for example, Rihanna and Calvin Harris’ 2016 collaboration, This Is What You Came For. The opening scene is of a bare desert landscape. Rihanna stands and twirls in a box. Scenes flicker across the walls of the box she’s in, from lightning streaking down a mountain range to crowds at a rave. But they are on the screen around her. She’s physically distant from the crowds and they are just projections she’s standing alone in. Her reality is the empty studio around her where there is no one else – or, at least, no one else on screen.

“I’ve been analysing my childhood and thinking about loneliness,” he reflects. “Seeing how it shows up for me throughout my life. But it’s also something I really care about. I have a lot of empathy for people that feel lonely. I don’t want people to feel lonely, so I feel like I’ve made [Snorkeling] to address some of those [feelings].”

Snorkeling, then, is a healing process for Nava, who connected with Froseth during the shoots. “For both of us, we went on a journey together on this film,” Nava elaborates, “and we addressed things in our own lives that we then wanted to put into this narrative and these characters.”

Like Nava, the protagonists – particularly Froseth, who plays Jameson – struggle with addiction. The premise behind Snorkeling is that a new drug is administered through an oxygen mask. Jameson doesn’t like herself much and she longs to escape. Snorkeling gives her out of body experiences, where she dances around the woods. The world sparkles, people around her turn into anime characters and life feels wonderful. Michael is in love with Jameson. Out of curiosity, he joins her and they snorkle together. What begins as a beautiful high, however, gives way to a dark, all-consuming dependence on the drug.

I did have a big feeling of loneliness growing up. I think that I was a lonely kid, you know?

“Ultimately I was exploring my own past, my own feelings of isolation and disconnection,” Nava explains. “Then I was also exploring what was happening right then and there with young people at the time. Because I make a lot of music videos, the kind of people I’m working with, they’re new artists. They go big. I was looking at what was happening and I was thinking about the future and where we’re going and what this loneliness epidemic means to young people. I’ve been exploring it across all generations. It’s a problem universally at the moment. I really wanted to touch on very real and truthful topics throughout the film.”

Aside from the subject material, the process of making a film proved to be difficult. “Getting it made was incredibly hard,” Nava offers, “but finishing it was even harder.” The pandemic happened and Nava became a father to twin girls. “You’ve got to choose something that you can stand by for many years. I’ve watched my children grow and talk and walk.”

In the time since the film has been made, the creative industries have fluctuated wildly. “The music video landscape has changed considerably because ultimately you can just make a music video now on your phone. It’s really good and it’s bad. Good because new, younger artists, people with no budget, can just make a music video. It can feel very social native. But I do think it’s also sad because artists love to make a big music video, you know?

“I love bringing people together and creating unique experiences, because that’s what music videos used to do. They used to be these cultural moments when everyone came together to watch this thing on this day.”

I don’t want people to feel lonely, so I feel like I’ve made [Snorkeling] to address some of those [feelings]

The rise of the creator economy is a new change too, and Nava makes mention of Amelia Dimoldenberg of Chicken Shop Date and Cole Bennett, who founded the multimedia company Lyrical Lemonade. “I keep saying to people, you can go make a music video, you can go and get paid a cheque and give that thing away and not own it. Or you can go and make something that you own, that you put out, that you get behind and you make successful.”

He offers, “I really do believe, from making Snorkeling, that if you just don’t give up and you keep making stuff, it will work.”

Snorkeling is released on July 25; emilnava.com