HIFF 2009 / A surefire way to grab your audience’s attention is to break out into song. If you’re going to go that route, however, you damn well better have something to say. In After the Storm, playing Thu, 10/22 and Fri, 10/23 at Dole Cannery, there’s a lot that goes unspoken. Two years post-Katrina, New Orleans still sits in rubble, with many of its inhabitants still waiting for FEMA trailers.

“When I first saw the devastation of Katrina on TV, like a lot of people, I felt compelled to do something,” explains actor and author James Lecesne. “I’m not a carpenter, I can’t build a house, so I thought, well, what do I know how to do? I know how to tell a story. And theater knows how to do that best, so I thought that coming down there and helping people tell their story might help.”

Using theater as catharsis, Lecesne, along with director/choreographer Gerry McIntyre, adapt the Broadway hit musical Once on This Island, a Caribbean tale of a group of hurricane survivors trying to comfort a small child through songs and stories. For a venue, they chose St. Marks Community Center, which served over 300 kids with after-school programs and community classes. Two years after the disaster, St. Marks was still shuttered, families were still splintered, and two transplants from Broadway managed to do something to inspire us all, showing the lives of those casts as they try to rebuild, and build something new and special.

Not without pitfalls, however. Working with children, many whom have never appeared onstage before, disaster looms for the show itself when cast members leave out of petulance, the musical director gets a break on Broadway, and one of the star singers is too young and immature to sit through rehearsal.

After the Storm isn’t as hard on the heartstrings as last year’s outstanding post-Katrina documentary Trouble the Water. It’s not supposed to be. But it’s impossible not to be affected by 11-year-old Eric, who tries to emphasize the positive things in his life, explaining how he got clothes and shelter from friends and relatives. “Good things come out of bad things too,” he says. Seconds later, he’s sobbing quietly, unable to convince himself of his own argument.

Fruit Fly, playing Sun 10/18 and Mon, 10/19 at Dole Cannery, uses its songs as pure whimsy, and the playfulness comes through from the opening credits in H.P. Mendoza’s opening score. This is the second musical for the screenwriter, who starred in 2006’s Colma: The Musical, and like that film, Casio keyboards ought to be sending him thank you letters come Christmas time. Following the adventures of Bethesda (L.A. Renigen, who also starred in Colma), a Filipina girl working through abandonment issues through performance art, the musical numbers begin as soon as she appears on screen, in a loving tribute to San Francisco’s public transit system. Moving into a communal house filled with various misfits, Mendoza has the characters tell their stories through songs, from a ballad toward teen angst (“Speechless”), to the utterly filthy duet “We Have So Much In Common.” Bethesda makes friends, finds lovers, searches out her missing mother and comes to a realization that in her short time in the city, her community has already outed her as a Fruit Fly (a more PC-friendly term for “f*g hag,” which is also debated and discussed through song).

All told, Fruit Fly has 19 musical numbers, ranging from punk to electro dance. The songs all display a grand helping of wit, though Mendoza’s predilection toward perversion can grow a bit wearisome. The film won this year’s Audience Award at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, and for those who can handle subject matter that makes no apologies, it’s obvious why it was so well-received, even by those who usually avoid musicals.

Other films of note:

Storm (Mon 10/19 & Wed 10/21)

Espionage and intrigue abound when a lawyer takes on atrocities in Bosnia and Sarajevo.

If I Knew What You Said (Fri 10/16 & Tue 10/20)

This one time, at band camp… Director Mike Sandejas returns to HIFF with an inspirational story of teens using music to bond, despite differences and handicaps.

A Village Called Versailles (Sat 10/17 & Tue 10/20)

Another heartbreaking (and necessary) spotlight on Katrina, this time showing the plight and courage of a community of Vietnamese refugees, attempting to rebuild despite government interference.

Battle League Horumo (Mon 10/19 & Wed 10/21)

Students join a club, only to find themselves mired in a battle royale. Adapted from the best-selling fantasy novel by Manabu Makime.

Air Doll (Sat 10/24 & Sun 10/25)

It would be almost fair to call this the Japanese version of 2007’s Lars and the Real Girl, except this sex doll (spoiler alert!) actually does come to life. A sweet and sensitive tale of a sex toy seeing the world in a new light.

Dear Lemon Lima (Tue 10/20 & Thu 10/22)

A Yup’ik 13-year-old girl lands a scholarship in an exclusive prep school, only to discover how exclusivity can cut both ways, until she rallies ’round the misfits to compete against the snobs.

Once Upon a Time in Rio (Sun 10/18 & Wed 10/21)

Racism and prejudice divide a town as a boy from Ipanema copes with the fact that his sister gets all the credit for the ubiquitous elevator music. OK, not really, but the boy in question does find true love on the other side of the tracks, exactly where he’s not supposed to be looking.