Private Project

Lupe Q and the Galactic Corn Cake

Lupe doesn’t care about her abuela’s cooking lessons, she just wants to rock with her badass punk band. But when Lupe finds herself battling an alien monster with her band, her abuela's lessons will remind her that punk rock is more than just loud music, and connecting with her Latin roots may just save their lives.

Logline:
Aliens. Punk Rock. Corn Cakes. In space, only grandma's latin cooking will save you.

Note: Spanish subtitled version available upon request.

  • Javier Badillo
    Director
    Roads of Ithriyah, Baba, Coco Blue
  • Javier Badillo
    Writer
    Roads of Ithriyah, Baba, Coco Blue
  • Nat Marshik
    Writer
    Lupe Q and the Galactic Earworms, Roads of Ithriyah
  • Javier Badillo
    Producer
    Roads of Ithriyah, Baba, Coco Blue
  • Josh Farnworth
    Producer
    Jonah, Fraggle Rock, The Last of Us
  • Sofia Skates
    Key Cast
    "Lupe Q"
    Balestra
  • Magda Ochoa
    Key Cast
    "Abuela Josefina"
    Cuello
  • Sophia Chapdelaine
    Key Cast
    "Pachi"
    Marry Go Round
  • Tristan Miura
    Key Cast
    "Toro"
    Happy Ever After
  • Andy Brown
    Cinematography
    Bucketheads, The Revenant
  • Marco Bossow
    Cinematography
    Bucketheads, Dragged Across Concrete
  • Dallas Harvey
    Creature and Makeup Effects
    The Exorcist
  • Natasha Klock
    Creature and Makeup Effects
    Exalted
  • Sami Ghali
    Special Effects
    Prey, A Series of Unfortunate Events
  • Shannon Bradley
    Production Manager
    Bucketheads
  • Alexander Gibson
    Assistant Director
    Shogun, Bucketheads
  • Dominic Dobrzensky
    Assistant Director
    Shogun, Bucketheads
  • Amanda Voll
    Stunts
    Snowpiercer
  • Brett Armstrong
    Stunts
    War for the Planet of the Apes
  • Chihiro Nagematsu
    Composer
    Gracie and Pedro: Pets to the Rescue, Pocket Princess
  • Todd LeBlanc
    Sound Design
    Roads of Ithriyah, Jikirag
  • Tina Marie McCulloch
    Casting
    Can I get a Witness, Lowlifes
  • Juan Pablo Gonzalez-Amaya
    Production Design
    Golden Delicious, The Imperfects
  • Javier Badillo
    Editing
    Roads of Ithriyah, Baba
  • Mateo Rey
    Editing
    Pomelo
  • Matthew MacTavish
    Sound Recordist
    Roads of Ithriyah, Coco Blue
  • Dallas Harvey
    Visual Effects Supervisor
    Reapers, 7 Demons
  • Jeff Speers
    Music
    Reapers, Everyday Girl
  • Richard Villalobos
    Music
  • Carlos Etcheverry
    2D Animation
  • Ana Nunes
    Location Manager
    Tom and Grant
  • Franco Pesce
    Script Supervision
    I Tried to Give Up, Love and So On
  • Chris Clements
    First Aid
    Easter Bunny Bloodbath, Tales From the Grave
  • Amy Fox
    Miniatures Creature Supervisor
    Apex, The Switch
  • Marc de Vinci
    Still Photographer
    La Vie Selon Moi, The Final Catch
  • Morris Bartlett
    Propsmaster
    Murdaugh Murders: The Movie, Tip Line
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Lupe Q y la Arepa Galactica
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Sci-Fi, Action, Comedy, Music
  • Runtime:
    4 minutes 23 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 30, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    18,500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Language:
    English, Spanish
  • Shooting Format:
    RED
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.39:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • FilmQuest 2023
    Provo, Utah
    United States
    October 31, 2023
    World Premiere
    Nomination, Best Micro Short
  • Vancouver Island International Short Film Festival 2024
    Nanaimo
    Canada
    March 23, 2024
    Canadian Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Vancouver Latin American Film Festival 2024
    Vancouver
    Canada
    September 7, 2024
    Vancouver Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Vancouver Badass Film Festival 2024
    Vancouver
    Canada
    October 18, 2024
    Nominations for BEST SHORT FILM, BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY and BEST ENSEMBLE
  • Available Light Film Festival 2025
    Whitehorse
    Canada
    February 7, 2025
    Yukon Premiere
    Honorable Mention
Director Biography - Javier Badillo

JAVIER BADILLO (Director, Writer, Producer)

BIO - 50 words:
Javier Badillo is a Venezuelan-Canadian punk-rocker-turned-filmmaker. In 2022, his crowdfunded first feature ROADS OF ITHRIYAH won a Leo Award and received four nominations, including best picture. His second feature, the Latinx sci-fi action comedy LUPE Q AND THE GALACTIC EARWORMS received Telefilm funding and will be filmed in the summer of 2025.

BIO - 160 words:
Javier Badillo is a Leo nominated, Venezuelan-Canadian writer, director and producer. After a career as a musician and 2D animator, Javier found a natural fit in independent film. Since 2008, his short films have been selected and won awards at numerous festivals including Chicago Children’s Film Festival, Cinéfest Sudbury, Flickers' Rhode Island, and Reelworld, among many others.

In 2022, Javier released his first feature film, the war drama ROADS OF ITHRIYAH, receiving five Leo Award nominations including best picture, best directing, best lead actor, and best script, winning for best sound. It was nominated as Best Canadian Film at RIFFA.

Javier is currently preparing to shoot his second feature film, the Latinx punk rock, sci-fi action comedy LUPE Q AND THE GALACTIC EARWORMS. The project received financial support from Telefilm, CreativeBC, Shaw Rocket Fund, CMF, and New Dawn (Nederlands Filmfond).

------------------------------------------------

NAT MARSHIK (Co-Writer, Associate Producer)

BIO - 50 words
Born in North Vancouver, BC, Nat wrote poetry chapbooks and the short memoir MILK IT! She was awarded the poetry mentorship prize by Plenitude Queer Literary Magazine in 2014, and in 2016 her queer short memoir, The Rabbit, was a finalist for Room Magazine’s creative non-fiction prize.

BIO - 175 words
Born and raised in North Vancouver, BC, Nat holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honours from McGill University, where she majored in Gender Studies, and a Fine Arts Diploma from Langara College.

From 2010 to 2016, Nat was active in Vancouver’s poetry and creative writing communities, producing the poetry chapbooks riverveins, Outlines, and Face to the Wind, and the short memoir MILK IT! She was awarded the poetry mentorship prize by Plenitude Queer Literary Magazine in 2014, and in 2016 her queer short memoir, The Rabbit, was a finalist for Room Magazine’s creative non-fiction prize.

In 2020, her short screenplay THE LANTERN (co-written with Javier Badillo) was a finalist for the Reel Work Filmmaking Initiative script competition (BIPOC TV & Film Toronto). In 2021, her feature comedy screenplay LUPE Q AND THE GALACTIC EARWORMS (co-written with Javier Badillo) received development funding from Telefilm Canada and CreativeBC, and was one of 12 projects selected for the inaugural Blood in the Snow Genre Development Lab in Toronto. By day, Nat provides professional bookkeeping services to arts & environmental non-profits.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Punk rock. Disenfranchised BIPOC teens. Creepy space aliens. Queer young romance. It’s the underdog-buddy-comedy-space opera I’ve been waiting to tell ever since I was an angsty Latin American kid shrieking into a mic and cranking my guitar amp to 11.

In the late nineties, as a Venezuelan teen coming of age in Southeast Asia, I had already grown up on four continents, uprooted into a cornucopia of places and cultures. I developed an abiding fascination with faraway worlds--and an intimate knowledge of the power of DIY punk culture to build bridges across language and cultures. When I fell in love with filmmaking it was just a matter of time before I mixed punk rock into my own films.

One last thing. To me, characters make the movie. And I’ve always loved movies where the characters are thrown into unbelievable adventures. The one thing that was missing in those amazing stories I watched growing up: diversity of representation, including my own Latin identity. Now that I create the characters that populate my films, it’s where my work begins.