A scene from H.P. Mendoza’s Bitter Melon “Domestic violence and black comedy don’t seem a natural match, but the film pulls it off.”

Outfest Los Angeles, the oldest film festival in Los Angeles and considered the preeminent LGBTQ film festival in the world, kicked off on July 12 with 11 days of world-class films, panels and parties.

One of the more than 150 feature and short films to be shown to an audience of more than 40,000 people is Bitter Melon, a film project chosen last year for funding and support under Cinematografo Originals.

Bitter Melon is the third feature film H.P. Mendoza directed (Fruit Fly, I Am a Ghost). The film had its world premiere at the CAAMFest in San Francisco last May. Dennis Harvey of Variety described it as “invigorating” and Mendoza’s “best directorial feature to date.” KGO Radio praised it as “a rare and wonderful movie.” Tim Sika of the San Francisco Film Critics Circle hailed it as “an indie masterpiece.”

Harvey describes the brilliance of Mendoza and Bitter Melon: “Domestic violence and black comedy don’t seem a natural match, but to an impressive degree Bitter Melon pulls off their shotgun marriage.” He added that “the film has juggled a lot of tonal, plot and character elements with aplomb — Mendoza’s screenplay achieving a kind of high-fiber, low-fat emotional shorthand furthered by energetic input from Juli Lopez’s widescreen lensing and Sylvia Fernandez’s editing.”

Bitter Melon was shown on July 13 at Harmony Gold Theater, a landmark, historic state-of-the-art screening and event facility on West Sunset Boulevard at 7 p.m.