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.
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
Best Narrative Feature - Audience Award - San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival Best Overall Film - Fort Worth LGBT Film Festival Rising Star Award - Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
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" 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.