Film

Tijuana Makes Me Happy

Director

Dylan Verrechia

Year

2007

Happiness lies at the bottom of Tijuana.

Every man remembers how hard it is being 15 years old: Your voice is cracking, your hormones are raging, school is boring, the girl you love is a young prostitute who won't go out with you because you don't have enough cash, so you start smuggling drugs across the border in order to save enough money to buy a rooster so you can enter a cockfight and win her love. It's a tale as old as time itself. Tijuana Makes Me Happy, which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Slamdance Film Festival, is both a charming coming-of-age story and a celebration of the most infamous of all Mexican border towns.