Fil-Am's film on homosexuals enters US festiv
JOHN BRAMHALL, Philippine News
SAN FRANCISCO — At first glance, H. P. Mendoza seems like a combustible bundle of energy, ideas, talent, dialogue, vision and insight.
And then he becomes more intense. His intensity’s most recent manifestation will be unveiled at the world premiere of 'Fruit Fly', an 82-minute film portraying the gay/bohemian life in San Francisco through a Filipino-American filter. The premiere was held at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco last Sunday.
Mendoza, 31, is also the screenwriter/composer of ‘Colma: The Musical’, a coming-of-age film directed by Richard Wong, whom he met in film school at San Mateo College. The Colma film is reminiscent of Mendoza’s adolescent years in the tiny suburb, best known for its huge area cemetery.
"I first came up with the concept (for ‘Fruit Fly’) during the making of ‘Colma’," Mendoza said.
Hanging out with the cast and crew, he recalls someone referring to a popular Asian-American comedienne as a "fag-hag." The images of "emasculated Asians, flaming faggots" and other, similar racial and sexual stereotypes irritated Mendoza to the point where he decided to address these issues in film.
"Coming-out films are for straight audiences. I thought ‘What if I make this even gayer, even more Filipino’?" he says of his early musings on the film.
Mendoza was born and raised in the Mission and Excelsior districts in a household where English, Tagalog and Ilocano were spoken in almost equal measure. His artistic foray started with music, an endeavor that eventually culminated in several albums of his own songs, one of which concerned Colma.
The tiny necropolis south of San Francisco left an imprint on Mendoza’s psyche: “When we moved there, the people were ‘different’. The ‘subversive’ thing to do there was smoke weed in the cemetery. I just felt this pining..." Mendoza’s sexuality is given voice in his music.
"I just got tired of coded lyrics," he said. "Songs like ‘Makin’ Whoopee’ and stuff by Cole Porter, they were coded. You should just go ahead and say it. Lots of the songs that I write are unabashedly gay. Even the non-gay things that I write, the sensibility is there."
Acknowledging the fact that in this 27th Annual Asian American Film Festival "I am the only Filipino-American and there’s just one other Filipino film in the festival (‘Adela’ by Adolfo Alix Jr.)," Mendoza recalls watching Filipino films at the various film festivals he has attended.
"I was a big fan of Dolphy and I got to meet ‘Chiquito’ (the late Augusto V. Pangan) at some event in Daly City when I was 7 or 8. He was so self-aggrandizing, saying ‘Oh yes, I was so great’," which amused the boy no end.
The Filipino films that were rented for his household, though, changed to a darker tone once his parents divorced: “All of them were about divorce or horror."
While lamenting the fact that in the USA “it’s hard enough to get Asians on the big screen" and that “Filipinos are still pretty invisible", Mendoza nonetheless sees a promising future for Pinoy cinema.
"Filipino films are going to become more cutting-edge," he predicted. "People are surprised at the frankness of how they portray gay themes. People are gonna remember the gay themes."
Two examples he gave of admirable Filipino films were 2001’s ‘The Debut’ by Gene Cajayon and ‘The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros’ by Auraeus Solito, both belonging to the coming-of-age genre.
His own work tends more toward the reflective than the didactic, a fact that Mendoza himself acknowledges.
"It’s not my job to tell what Filipinos are," he asserts. "I want to make a movie that shows ‘we’ve been here’...I’m not trying to educate people." - Philippine News
SAN FRANCISCO — At first glance, H. P. Mendoza seems like a combustible bundle of energy, ideas, talent, dialogue, vision and insight.
And then he becomes more intense. His intensity’s most recent manifestation will be unveiled at the world premiere of 'Fruit Fly', an 82-minute film portraying the gay/bohemian life in San Francisco through a Filipino-American filter. The premiere was held at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco last Sunday.
Mendoza, 31, is also the screenwriter/composer of ‘Colma: The Musical’, a coming-of-age film directed by Richard Wong, whom he met in film school at San Mateo College. The Colma film is reminiscent of Mendoza’s adolescent years in the tiny suburb, best known for its huge area cemetery.
"I first came up with the concept (for ‘Fruit Fly’) during the making of ‘Colma’," Mendoza said.
Hanging out with the cast and crew, he recalls someone referring to a popular Asian-American comedienne as a "fag-hag." The images of "emasculated Asians, flaming faggots" and other, similar racial and sexual stereotypes irritated Mendoza to the point where he decided to address these issues in film.
"Coming-out films are for straight audiences. I thought ‘What if I make this even gayer, even more Filipino’?" he says of his early musings on the film.
Mendoza was born and raised in the Mission and Excelsior districts in a household where English, Tagalog and Ilocano were spoken in almost equal measure. His artistic foray started with music, an endeavor that eventually culminated in several albums of his own songs, one of which concerned Colma.
The tiny necropolis south of San Francisco left an imprint on Mendoza’s psyche: “When we moved there, the people were ‘different’. The ‘subversive’ thing to do there was smoke weed in the cemetery. I just felt this pining..." Mendoza’s sexuality is given voice in his music.
"I just got tired of coded lyrics," he said. "Songs like ‘Makin’ Whoopee’ and stuff by Cole Porter, they were coded. You should just go ahead and say it. Lots of the songs that I write are unabashedly gay. Even the non-gay things that I write, the sensibility is there."
Acknowledging the fact that in this 27th Annual Asian American Film Festival "I am the only Filipino-American and there’s just one other Filipino film in the festival (‘Adela’ by Adolfo Alix Jr.)," Mendoza recalls watching Filipino films at the various film festivals he has attended.
"I was a big fan of Dolphy and I got to meet ‘Chiquito’ (the late Augusto V. Pangan) at some event in Daly City when I was 7 or 8. He was so self-aggrandizing, saying ‘Oh yes, I was so great’," which amused the boy no end.
The Filipino films that were rented for his household, though, changed to a darker tone once his parents divorced: “All of them were about divorce or horror."
While lamenting the fact that in the USA “it’s hard enough to get Asians on the big screen" and that “Filipinos are still pretty invisible", Mendoza nonetheless sees a promising future for Pinoy cinema.
"Filipino films are going to become more cutting-edge," he predicted. "People are surprised at the frankness of how they portray gay themes. People are gonna remember the gay themes."
Two examples he gave of admirable Filipino films were 2001’s ‘The Debut’ by Gene Cajayon and ‘The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros’ by Auraeus Solito, both belonging to the coming-of-age genre.
His own work tends more toward the reflective than the didactic, a fact that Mendoza himself acknowledges.
"It’s not my job to tell what Filipinos are," he asserts. "I want to make a movie that shows ‘we’ve been here’...I’m not trying to educate people." - Philippine News
Comments