JUDE GALLERY

Mascota
Experimental Film
10.29 - 11.5.22

Mascota (2021) is an animated feature film created in the genre of experimental fantasy. Mascota follows a lost pilgrim named Peregrina who finds themselves in a town where each townsfolks individual lottery ticket is what allows them to participate in the town’s activities. The film's narrative and aesthetic is heavily influenced by a myriad of sources including fable, sociopolitical history, and theological rhetoric coalescing Live Action Role Playing (LARP) with subaltern politics and the eschatology of the Christ narrative. The film makes use of keyframing, image plating and motion capture A.I. software delivering a hodgepodge of found imagery, evocative voice acting and a captivating original score. Mascota is a cultural critique and allegorical satire of the way these stylistic elements manifest in the construction of our contemporary social reality, and is ultimately a story of unrequited desire and social othering.

Misael Jose Oquendo
and Nico Garcini

Misael Jose Oquendo (b. 1993) is a Puerto Rican video artist, curator and writer based in Los Angeles. He recently graduated from the Aesthetics & Politics (2020, MA) program at the California Institute of the Arts. He also studied film and visual critical studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he graduated with a BFA in 2016. His videos have been exhibited at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago and most recently at the LA Contemporary Archive in Los Angeles.


Nico Garcini (b. 1993) is a Cuban-American writer, filmmaker, musician and visual artist currently based in Tucson, AZ. He graduated with a BFA in film from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, where he studied under Peter Hutton.