Fruit Fly

Special admission prices apply: General admission, $10 until March 11, $11 on or after March 12; BAM/PFA and Center for Asian American Media members, $8; Students, seniors, and disabled persons, $9.

The composer, costar, and codirector of Colma: The Musical returns with this loud-and-proud, indie-Asian-gay hijacking of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg that aims a poisoned pen and catchy Casio keyboards at San Francisco and the performance artists, homo honeys, leather bears, and “versatile bottoms” that live (and sing) therein. Bethesda (L. A. Renigen, Colma), newly arrived from Maryland by way of Manila, is eager to succeed in San Francisco's performance art world, and also hopes to find the mother who abandoned her at birth. Her new flatmates soon whisk our young Dorothy over the rainbow to experience San Francisco's alcoholic nights, hungover days, and various interpretations of what “belonging” means. Funded by CAAM, Fruit Fly represents a new generation of Asian American filmmaking; its deceptively casual mash-up of ethnic and sexual identity politics is nuanced enough to fuel a master's thesis, but one doesn't need a degree to understand what's going on. Forget Milk; Fruit Fly's guerrilla vitality makes it the real San Francisco film of the year.

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