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Rediscovering Our Identities: Interview with Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig, co-directors of JARIPEO

At times, we need to take a step away from our surroundings to gain a new perspective on our lives. In this sense, stepping away from what is familiar can help us rediscover and come to terms with parts of who we really are. 

In Jaripeo, Efraín Mojica reflects on his relationship with his origins and the traditions of his community from a renewed perspective, and in this process he finds a new lens for observing life through his co-director Rebecca Zweig.

We had the opportunity to talk with the directors after the screening of their film during the 24th edition of the Morelia International Film Festival.

FICM: Hello, Rebeca, hello Efraín. It’s a real pleasure to be here with you. It’s such an honor. We saw Jaripeo a few days ago and I really enjoyed it.

So, let’s begin with the questions. Efraín, how was your experience of telling this story? How did it feel to return to Penjamillo and immortalize such intimacy? And for you, Rebecca, this story is told through secrets and whispers. How did you feel when discovering Michoacán for the first time and immersing yourself in all those traditions?

Efraín Mojica: I’m very glad to hear you enjoyed the film! Well, Jaripeo implied a very long and intense journey. Just to give you an idea, we spent four years filming the movie because, for a period of four years, we were returning to Penjamillo each winter to capture the jaripeos that take place around Christmas and New Year’s. 

It was a very long process of returning to  my hometown, of analyzing my relationship with the jaripeo and all traditions. With this, I mean, coming back and seeing my connection with my friends, my family, and eventually with myself, you know? Thanks to these roots, I found myself again.

I remember the moment when I walked away and said, “This does not represent me and I do not want to be associated with these macho and misogynistic traditions.” It was through the characters of Joseph and Noé, through the jaripeo and the community, that I came to realize that I was, in fact, part of them.

To be honest with you, it was very hard to come to terms with the fact that the story I am telling in this film is my own story told through their voices. However, we understood that I needed to unveil my vulnerability in order for our protagonists to feel safe and comfortable enough to open up and share their story.

Rebecca Zweig: Well, I first came to Michoacán and to the project because Efra invited me to spend Christmas with his family quite a few years ago, back in 2018. At that moment, I was working on a series that ultimately never came out, and part of it was about Michoacán. So, I was somewhat inside that world without really knowing it.

Arriving at the jaripeo felt like a spark coming from the place itself, from Michoacán’s history, and from this performance of masculinity that exists within the jaripeo. I found it fascinating. I left the place with a lot of questions.

Actually, we kept going for many years before starting the project, just to celebrate and spend time together. However, I was always taking notes on things that caught my attention. It wasn’t until 2021 that we began the project. 

Though I’m not from Mexico and I’m 100% foreign, I spent a lot of time in Penjamillo and Morelia before we even considered beginning any project. During these four years of making the film, we spent long periods without the camera, since the process wasn’t only about recording, it was more like documenting our own journey and reflections, questioning ourselves about how to express and delve into what intrigued us. 

Yes, it was definitely an exploration process, in which we were filming the project while discovering the things that drew our attention. I personally think that deciding what you’re going to make from the start, without even being present in the location and with the people there, is damaging to the cinema. I say this because those experiences will surely teach you more than you could ever anticipate from your own preconceptions.

FICM: What fascinates us is that you both come from very different backgrounds and approach the topic in completely different ways. How did you both decide to co-direct? What do you think, Efraín, Rebecca contributes to the direction, and what does Efraín bring to it, Rebecca?

Efraín Mojica: I would say that, aside from the obvious fact that I grew up there and belong to that place, my approach to the film is quite experimental, just as it is with my art.

I’m always trying to portray and express things in non-traditional ways. So, keeping in mind that this documentary would have to deal with a very traditional theme and environment, I found it fascinating to portray it through an experimental lens.

Rebecca Zweig: Well, I come from the world of poetry. It was a bit of a coincidence because I was working at a place when I happened to come to Penjamillo. So, I conceived the film as a series of cinematic impressions from that viewpoint; in other words, less a linear narrative and more an emotional arc. That’s what interested me the most: how to keep creating.

Actually, Efra and I had never worked together in film before this movie. We each brought our own artistic perspectives into this collaboration, which made it possible to portray these themes in a unique way.

FICM: I found an intriguing contrast and similarity in Jaripeo. On one hand, there is the macho ideal you mention, Efraín, in the cowboy costume you wore in high school and the boots you would dust off to perform at the jaripeos; and on the other hand, the men in Penjamillo who, as you say, embrace their homosexuality only at night, as if it were something external to them, a mask they put on.

After spending time there, what would you say is the biggest challenge for a gay person living in a remote community such as Penjamillo?

Efraín Mojica: Definitely, I think that the greatest challenge is self-acceptance because that is something that comes from within. Yet it is deeply tied to how we were raised and how we perceived the world around us. However, from my own experience, it’s more about an inner fear than any real reaction or consequence that would actually happen.

Now, Penjamillo is a town that openly accepts the queer community, but it was thanks to Joseph, who once had the courage to go out wearing a skirt, with nails and makeup, so that there’s no longer a shock at seeing an openly queer person in town.

Still, that fear remains deep inside the heart. So, I think it’s something very personal, an inner struggle we have to identify before we can break free from it.

Rebecca Zweig: Yes. Truth be told, while shooting, we focused 100% on what we saw in Penjamillo, but I really hope that there’s something that can resonate in what’s happening in other communities across Michoacán and Mexico, and perhaps even beyond these places and dynamics that exist here.

I remember that when we released the trailer, I received a message saying they recognized in Joseph’s character the kind of person who exists in every Mexican town. They would say, “I know this person, there’s someone like that in my town.”

This might open up a conversation that isn’t currently happening because, just like in Penjamillo, it’s something that’s happening everywhere, it’s already there.

FICM: You’re completely right. Speaking of starting this conversation, what does it mean to you to present Jaripeo in Michoacán?

Efraín Mojica: Well, for me, it’s an incredible joy to finally bring the film to the town and share it with the people who welcomed us and opened their homes during its creation. Of course, there’s been a huge curiosity from everyone since we began working on this film five years ago.

We would like to screen the film outdoors, in the jaripeo corral, just where we shot it. We are looking forward to bringing cinema to the town because, evidently, many people aren’t used to going to the movies. So, bringing it home and sharing it with them as a way of thanking them is truly moving.

FICM: You both mentioned the experimentation that defines each of your artistic approaches. We found the blend of digital and film fascinating. We consider it brings so much color, texture, and movement. What does combining both technologies represent for you?

Efraín Mojica: From the very beginning, we conceived the Super 8 mm as the queer perspective. It was my queer lens, the Super 8 mm handycam I kept in my hand all the time. It was a way of highlighting that physical language, those gestures of intimacy among men, and capturing the subtle details that are part of the jaripeo’s queer subculture.

It’s about shifting from the wide and conventional digital lens—in other words, what appears traditional at first glance—to the Super 8 mm, which draws us into a queer perspective, a lens that embodies desire.

Rebecca Zweig: We wanted to narrate something that exists on the edges of the event, something that occurs deep inside the community, something that carries secrecy, without violating it. We thought of using film textures to achieve that sense of intimacy.