A Nuyorican bruja receives a visit from her ancestor during meditation and decides to move to Puerto Rico to live off the land like her ancestors, but native life is tougher than expected.
The Director
Angelina Villapiano, also known as Miss Angelina, has an entertainment career that spans film, television, new media and music. She received her degree in Theatre from Northwestern University. She directed and produced the music web series “¡GLOBAILE!” that was featured on the television program “American Latino” and streamed in partnership with John Leguizamo’s NGL Media. She directed, wrote and produced the comedy web series “Pandemic and Chill” that was nominated for 3 awards in the Official Latino Film Festival including Best New Media. She wrote a one-woman musical comedy, “Sorta Rican” that has toured across the country in notable venues such as Hard Rock Cafe, Improv Olympic Theater and Broadway Comedy Club. She wrote the TV pilot adaptation of “Sorta Rican” and a scene was featured in the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) Latinx Stream Showcase and went on to win Best Comedy in the Genre Celebration Festival. She was named an Emerging Content Creator by the National Association of Latino Producers (NALIP). She wrote and recorded two albums on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon, has appeared on VH1, and has written original music for film, television and the web.
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Director Statement
When approaching the style and tone of LOKO, I wanted to use humor as a vehicle to broach a very relatable topic in today’s Latino generation – the reconnection to our Indigenous heritage.
As a Puerto Rican growing up in New Jersey, I myself never identified as Native American. Having been double colonized by Spain and then the U.S., Puerto Rico’s Indigenous history was robbed from us. So I think I vaguely knew Taíno was a part of my heritage, but I didn’t really know anything about our culture, our history, or our traditions. It was only as a thirty-something woman that I finally educated myself about my own Indigenous ancestry. This connection has since become a profound part of my identity. I know that many Latinos (American and otherwise) are going through the same realizations as I am – we are indeed Native American, and we are ready to claim it, defend it, and preserve it.
My first task was to tackle the setting. I wanted to create the drastic contrast between the drab, edgy cityscape of our protagonist’s modern reality with the relentlessly hot, rugged, lush environment of the island she returns to. This contrast is very real for many Latino immigrant families living in the U.S. – the distinction between their current American, urban neighborhood and their more rural, tropical motherland. The transition from one to the other is rather harsh, and I wanted to capture those extreme differences.
The next step was to create the style I wanted to implement, which is over-the-top, slapstick comedy. I want LOKO to serve as a modern day parable, a story that is told in broad strokes to deliver a deeper message. For these reasons, I wanted to create stock characters that use physical comedy as a means to tackle a complicated and nuanced topic in a straightforward and even silly manner. It is important to me to give the audience permission to laugh and enjoy themselves when examining our identity as Indigenous people. Almost everything I’ve ever seen about Native Americans is tragic, violent and very serious. Having an Indigenous protagonist that is essentially a clown is something that is interesting and important to me. We are allowed to be joyful and ridiculous, too.
As a Puerto Rican growing up in New Jersey, I myself never identified as Native American. Having been double colonized by Spain and then the U.S., Puerto Rico’s Indigenous history was robbed from us. So I think I vaguely knew Taíno was a part of my heritage, but I didn’t really know anything about our culture, our history, or our traditions. It was only as a thirty-something woman that I finally educated myself about my own Indigenous ancestry. This connection has since become a profound part of my identity. I know that many Latinos (American and otherwise) are going through the same realizations as I am – we are indeed Native American, and we are ready to claim it, defend it, and preserve it.
My first task was to tackle the setting. I wanted to create the drastic contrast between the drab, edgy cityscape of our protagonist’s modern reality with the relentlessly hot, rugged, lush environment of the island she returns to. This contrast is very real for many Latino immigrant families living in the U.S. – the distinction between their current American, urban neighborhood and their more rural, tropical motherland. The transition from one to the other is rather harsh, and I wanted to capture those extreme differences.
The next step was to create the style I wanted to implement, which is over-the-top, slapstick comedy. I want LOKO to serve as a modern day parable, a story that is told in broad strokes to deliver a deeper message. For these reasons, I wanted to create stock characters that use physical comedy as a means to tackle a complicated and nuanced topic in a straightforward and even silly manner. It is important to me to give the audience permission to laugh and enjoy themselves when examining our identity as Indigenous people. Almost everything I’ve ever seen about Native Americans is tragic, violent and very serious. Having an Indigenous protagonist that is essentially a clown is something that is interesting and important to me. We are allowed to be joyful and ridiculous, too.