A journey to Michoacán’s hypermasculine rodeos descends into the subconscious of memory, queer desire, and longing, leading to a reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.
+ MoreA journey to Michoacán’s hypermasculine rodeos descends into the subconscious of memory, queer desire, and longing, leading to a reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.
“I brought you here to Penjamillo so you could see a little bit of what it’s like to be a young queer ranchero,” explains Efraín Mojica, who makes their feature directorial debut with Jaripeo, alongside Rebecca Zweig. Mojica serves as our guide into the vibrant world of the “jaripeos,” rural rodeos that draw macho cowboys, drunken revelers, and — enabled by the bacchanalian atmosphere — hidden queer encounters. Through vérité and Super 8 footage, the camera captures secret glances and fleeting touches and lingers lovingly on the riders’ bodies — manifestations of machismo as filtered through a queer lens. Mojica and Zweig construct rich portraits of queer rancheros sharing memories and confidences in warm, sometimes flirty, conversations and bring their past experiences to life in indelible, stylized dreamscapes celebrating queer self-expression, desire, and belonging. Jaripeo invites viewers to enter this space of traditional, performative masculinity and discover what lies beneath its surface. — BT
This film contains strobe effects.
Available in person. Also available online for the public (January 29–February 1) and credentialed press and industry (January 28–February 1).
Efraín Mojica
Rebecca Zweig
Sarah Strunin
Jun Stinson Yamagishi
Carine Chichkowsky
Gerardo Guerra
Juan Pablo González
Carrie Lozano
Lizzie Gillett
Ian Bonhôte
Natanael Guzman
Analía Goethals
Josué Eber Morales
Gerardo Guerra
Emilia Ezeta
Marton Radics
Maria Rojas
Karla Diaz
Sarah Strunin
slstrunin@gmail.com
Efraín Mojica is a Michoacán-born artist based in Mexico City. Their multidisciplinary work, shown from Berlin to Mexico City, explores light, sound, and matter through a conceptual art lens. Video art is central to their practice. Jaripeo is their first feature film.
Rebecca Zweig is a Mexico City–based filmmaker and writer. Published in The New York Times and The Nation, she is a Sundance Institute fellow and (Egg)celerator Lab grantee. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, her filmmaking is shaped by her poetic practice. Jaripeo is her first feature film.
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