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Fruit Fly (film)

{{Infobox film

| name = Fruit Fly

| image = Fruit Fly poster.jpg

| caption = Poster

| director = H.P. Mendoza

| writer = H.P. Mendoza

| producer =

| starring = H.P. Mendoza
L.A. Renigen
Mike Curtis
Theresa Navarro
Aaron Zaragoza
E.S. Park
Christian Cagigal
Don Wood
Michelle Talgarow

| music = H.P. Mendoza

| editing =

| cinematography =

| distributor =

| released = {{Film date|2009|3|15|SFIAAFF|2010|8|11|United States}}

| runtime = 94 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

}}

Fruit Fly is a 2009 musical film with gay and Asian-American themes, directed by H.P. Mendoza, who wrote the screenplay for Colma The Musical (2007). The film, made entirely in San Francisco, premiered on March 15, 2009 at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. It had a limited one-week run in New York on September 24, 2010.https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1326221/releaseinfo {{User-generated source|certain=yes|date=March 2022}}

Plot

Fruit Fly is a musical comedy about Bethesda, a Filipina performance artist finding home in the unlikeliest places. She moves into an artist commune in an attempt to workshop her latest piece which deals with finding her biological mother. In the process, she finds an artistic family, clues of her mother's whereabouts, and the startling possibility that she just might be a fag-hag.

Subplots include her relationship with her roommates in the artist commune, and their relationships with each other.

Cast

  • L. A. Renigen as Bethesda
  • Ivan de Guzman as himself
  • Mike Curtis
  • Aaron Zaragoza
  • E.S. Park
  • Theresa Navarro
  • Christian Cagigal
  • Don Wood
  • Michelle Talgarow
  • H.P. Mendoza
  • Christina Augello

Awards

History

During the festival life of Colma: The Musical, Mendoza and actress L.A. Renigen would jump back and forth from gay film festival to Asian film festival for about a year. After experiencing the strange treatment Renigen would receive from gay men (automatically labeling her as a "fag hag"), he decided to create Bethesda, a character based on Renigen. Bethesda, like Renigen, is a performance artist who moves to San Francisco to workshop her latest performance piece dealing with finding her biological mother. Also like Renigen, Bethesda finds herself going to gay bars every night and getting labeled a "fag hag". The musical film, called "irresistible"{{Cite web|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?type=movies&f=/c/a/2009/03/07/PKG716527J.DTL|title = 27th Asian American Film Festival to open|date = 8 March 2009}} by the San Francisco Chronicle was funded by the Center for Asian American Media and was awarded the Best Narrative Feature Audience Award at the 2009 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.

Legacy

In 2019, Fruit Fly was listed in the Los Angeles Times as one of the 100 films in "The Asian American Canon"{{Cite news |last=Hu |first=Brian |date=2019-10-04 |title=The Asian American Canon |work=Los Angeles Times |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2019-10-04/asian-american-films-canon |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221202104944/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2019-10-04/asian-american-films-canon |archive-date=2022-12-02}} and was celebrated for its 10th anniversary at the 2020 CAAMFest.{{Cite web|url=https://48hills.org/2020/05/10-years-later-h-p-mendozas-fruit-fly-plays-a-very-changed-san-francisco/|title=10 years later, H.P. Mendoza’s ‘Fruit Fly’ plays a very changed San Francisco4|website=48 Hills}}

Screenings

References

{{reflist}}

External links

  • {{Official website|http://www.fruitflyfilm.com}}
  • {{IMDb title|1326221|Fruit Fly}}
  • [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/12/NSBJ16B3RM.DTL&type=performance "Fruit Fly": H.P. Mendoza's last musical - San Francisco Chronicle]
  • {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20090313044527/http://www.sf360.org/features/the-buzz-on-hp-mendozas-fruit-fly "The buzz on H.P. Mendoza's Fruit Fly" - SF360]}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fruit Fly}}

Category:2009 films

Category:2000s English-language films

Category:2000s musical comedy films

Category:American LGBTQ-related films

Category:American musical comedy films

Category:Comedy films about Asian Americans

Category:Films shot in San Francisco

Category:Films about Filipino Americans

Category:American independent films

Category:LGBTQ culture in San Francisco

Category:LGBTQ-related musical comedy films

Category:2009 directorial debut films

Category:2009 comedy films

Category:Asian-American LGBTQ-related films

Category:Asian-American musical films

Category:2009 LGBTQ-related films

Category:2000s American films

Category:English-language musical comedy films

Category:2009 musical films