''Tijuana Makes Me Happy'' is a 2007 film made in

Tijuana Tijuana ( ,"Tijuana"
(US) and < ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. It was directed by

Dylan Verrechia Dylan Riis Verrechia (born March 9, 1976 in Paris) is a Barthélemois award-winning film director, auteur, screenwriter, and producer. He grew up in Saint Barthélemy, French West Indies, and was bedridden at age 8 from severe ankylosing spondyli ...

, co-written by James Lefkowitz, with original music by

Nortec Collective Nortec Collective was a musical ensemble formed by various individual one- or two-man production projects. The group came together in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. Their genre mixes electronic music with musical elements and instrumentation o ...

, and titled by writer Rafael Saavedra. Variety described it as "slight but likable". The movie has not yet had a general releas

but has been screened at several movie festival

and won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival, and is one of the four recipients of the 2007 SAFILM Indie Max Awar

Synopsis

Indio is a fourteen-year-old-boy who lives in Playas de Tijuana. Every day after school, Indio works at Sacramento's ranch in the hopes of buying his own

cockfighting A cockfight is a blood sport, held in a ring called a cockpit. The history of raising fowl for fighting goes back 6,000 years. The first documented use of the ''word'' gamecock, denoting use of the cock as to a "game", a sport, pastime or ente ...

rooster, el Gyro. When his dad refuses to help him buy the rooster, Indio starts selling empanadas and washing cars. One day, after he skips school to play with his friends, Indio meets Brianda, a young prostitute working in the

red light district A red-light district or pleasure district is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. In most cases, red-light districts are partic ...

. As time passes, Indio learns what it means to make money, a tough journey that takes him cross the border, from Montes Olímpicos to San Diego. Greed however takes the best of Indio; neglecting his rooster, he fights el Gyro to win over the love of Brianda.

References

External links

*
Tijuana Makes Me Happy official site''Tijuana Makes Me Happy'' at slamdance.com
The New York Times 2007 comedy-drama films Mexican comedy-drama films 2000s Spanish-language films 2007 films Cockfighting in film 2000s Mexican films {{2000s-comedy-drama-film-stub