If you travel at Christmastime to the central Mexican town of Penjamillo, in Michoacán, you will encounter its age-old emblem of hypermasculine cowboy culture: the rodeo, or as it is known there, jaripeo. Locals and returning migrants from the U.S. flock into the beer-soaked stands, cheer and gasp at daredevil riders in the dusty rodeo ring, and celebrate this annual rite of machismo that has for generations defined masculinity in this part of Mexico, and beyond.

But as this extraordinary and artistically striking documentary reveals, there is a hidden side to the jaripeo that few know: a private language of furtive glances, hookups in the nearby woods, and long-standing double lives that manage both to defy and honor the region’s beloved cowboy mythology. Only a trusted insider could gain access to this subculture; so it’s a gift that co-director Efraín Mojica — a queer man from Penjamillo now living in Southern California — can act as both subject and interlocutor, introducing us to handsome cowboy Noé, outrageous fan Joseph, and taking us on his own dreamlike journey of memory and self-discovery. Notes by Peter L. Stein

Screening at The Castro Theatre, June 20 3:30 PM

https://www.frameline.org/films/frameline50/jaripeo