Mascota

Mascota is an animated feature film created in the genre of experimental fantasy. Mascota follows a lost pilgrim named Peregrina who finds themselves furloughed in a town full of live action role players. In need of a square meal, the Pilgrim meets and follows a vagrant LARPer, Ratboy, who is fervently obsessed with an entity called the Floon. The townsfolk are not only all participating in a town wide LARP campaign, but they all appear to be compulsively partaking in a town lottery. The pilgrim comes to find that each individual’s lottery ticket is what allows them to participate in the town’s activities. Without a ticket, one is ostracized from all establishments and events, and like Ratboy, they become a Mascota. The townsfolk consider Mascota to be a subaltern citizen.

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.