Film Night – Jaripeo Documentary

Film Night – Jaripeo Documentary

For LGBTQIA+
Free with registration
Guest: Sebastián Arcos

Jaripeo

Directors: Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig
2026 – 70 min
(In Spanish and English with English subtitles)
Every Christmas, the town of Penjamillo in Michoacán comes alive with the Jaripeo — a traditional rodeo that draws locals and returning migrants from the United States, a celebration of cowboy culture and rural Mexican masculinity. Beneath the surface of this hypermasculine ritual, a hidden queer subculture blooms.nablässiger Moralisierung bewegen.

Co-directed by Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig, the film blends traditional ranchera experimenting with electronic sounds, Super 8 footage, and dreamlike interludes to reveal a queer subculture thriving within one of rural Mexico’s most macho-coded traditions. Efraín itself serves as a guide and protagonist, alongside Noé, a desirable cowboy who keeps his identity largely private, and Joseph, an exuberant stylist who wears his flamboyance with pride.
Jaripeo, which premiered at Sundance and had its international premiere at the Berlinale, does not seek to expose or resolve. It simply asks us to look more carefully, and to find, within tradition, the full complexity of desire and belonging.