Colma: The Musical opens today at the Embarcadero. The film’s guaranteed to run for a week, but if the crowds are good, the film could play for longer. So come out and support local queer Asian film!

The Guardian reviews it here.

To whet your appetite, we have a quick interview with the writer and star of Colma, HP Mendoza.

Left in SF: Colma definitely touches on the, um, unique aspects of the title town, but in some ways it could be set in any suburb. Did you make an effort to make it a more universal experience?
HP Mendoza: It wasn’t so much that the writing was informed by a decision I made to be more universal, but I did realize, early on, while writing about my experiences, that there must be millions of kids in different states going through the exact same thing. Living in New Jersey for a short spell really confirmed that for me.

You wrote the screenplay and the songs, but you also are one of the main characters. Did you write the part for yourself?
No way! I didn’t want another musical where someone in his thirties is playing a high schooler! We actually held casting calls to find a “Rodel”, but all of the people auditioning for Rodel were too flamboyant, and the guys who we liked for Rodel didn’t want to play a gay role. After a ton of auditions, Richard [Wong, the director] was quiet, wondering what we were going to do about the “Rodel” situation. I went to Rich and said, “You know…I do know all of the lyrics…and I do know all of the lines…” and he l said, “Yeah, I was thinking about asking you…”

The film’s been shown at a lot of Asian and gay film festivals. Is there a big difference in how audiences react at the different venues?
I notice walkouts at the gay festivals. I think the Asian festivals bring people of all kinds to the screenings of Colma, but, for some reason, the gay screenings bring in theater fags in their fifties whose favorite musical is South Pacific and feel that Colma is really vulgar or crass. Recently, however, we had a screening for the Gay Straight Alliance in Pacifica at Oceana High School, and we had one of the most boisterous and receptive audiences we’ve had since the premiere at the SF International Asian American Film Festival. I think age has everything to do with it, whether they’re Asian and / or gay.

Your character, Rodel, runs into some family trouble because he’s gay (to say the least). Is that from experience, or more of a universal thing, or both?
Rodel’s story is both from experience and a universal story. It’s a distilled version of events in my life, growing up. But apart from making a universal story of coming out, I got really sick of films where the gay character comes out and the parents look like evil incarnations of Falwell. Talk about myopic. They’re the gay equivalent of the myriad African-American comedies in the ’90s in which all the White characters are privileged racist idiots.

Some of the sequences in the film are pretty damn complicated, and involve a lot of people. What was the most ridiculous thing that you ran into while shooting them?
The Crash the Party sequence consisted of two shots, each in split-screen. Each shot was a single take, and I thought Richard was insane for wanting to do that. We had about thirty extras, a bunch of lighting cues (one was a Polaroid flash), aluminum confetti, a kissing couple, and a six minute song for us to lip sync to. Between sweeping confetti, forgetting lines, extras looking into the camera, and chapped lips, we did over ten takes for each shot. It was exhilirating and exhausting at the same time.

Are there things that we can do better in the Bay Area to make independent film production easier?
This may be an indirect answer, but demand affects production. Attendance at San Francisco screenings is good, but it could be better. Theaters and distributors don’t know how much support there is for a film if the viewers are all waiting for it to hit Lost Weekend or Le Video. If you see a local film in the festival that you like, tell a friend. Spread the word. Those filmmakers need your ticket!

It seems like there’s a trend of movies being made into musicals that then get made back into movies, like the Producers and Hairspray. Since Colma’s already a musical, where does it go from here? A drama? Colma: The Documentary? Colma: The Puppet Show?
So many people have asked if Colma is going to be a stage show. I don’t see it on stage. When I wrote it as a concept album, it was a musical in the way that The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner was a musical. It works as a movie because we can have close ups of people quietly seething. On stage, when you have to project that silent anger to the back row of a theater, something gets lost. I’d like to see Colma stand on it’s own. Unless it became a rhythm based video game for the Wii. I’d advocate that.

Other than giving you the opportunity to pimp your website, HPMendoza.com, what should people know that I haven’t asked?
I think people should know that independent film isn’t all about creative freedom. It’s also about lack of visibility. Evan Almighty made it’s money back before it even opened because it opens on THOUSANDS of screens in the U.S. so even if only two people show up at every screen, Evan Almighty more than breaks even. It can afford to not make money on opening weekend.

But an *indie* film gets one week in a SINGLE THEATER to prove that it’s going to make money for the distributor. If, in that week, it starts to not look so good, it gets pulled. If attendace is GOOD, then it gets extended and goes to other cities. So, if you say you’re a supporter of independent film, don’t hem and haw about seeing it in the theater (”eh…it’s so crowded; I’ll wait for it to hit video”) because it may be your only chance to see it. Because of lack of attendance, you *might* not even see a decent video release. So, support independent film! Spread the word, bring a friend.