Jaripeo

Every Christmas in the Mexican town of Penjamillo, Michoacán, the annual jaripeo (rodeo) unites locals and returning U.S. migrants in a celebration of hypermasculine cowboy culture and nostalgia. But alongside this spectacle of ranchero machismo and bull-riding bravado, a hidden subculture of queer desire quietly unfolds through fleeting touches, furtive glances, and clandestine hookups in the nearby woods. Filmmaker Efraín Mojica grew up between Penjamillo and Riverside, California, and he and co-director Rebecca Zweig blend Mojica’s personal experience, Super 8 footage, stylized memory, and raw verité to interrogate the machismo at its core. Through encounters with Noé, a macho cowboy living partly in secret, and Joseph, a flamboyant jaripeo superfan and community pillar, the film becomes an intimate journey of self-recognition within a traditionally masculine world. Co-presented by The Illinois Gay Rodeo Association.