The first time I went to Tijuana I felt a very powerful connection. I was 23 years old and the city got into me.  There are many images of Tijuana that still linger in my mind, even today after so many years: the rusty border fence and the wild nights of drugstores, prostitutes and “americanos”, the cynic trafficking of women and children, reminded on billboards like the only rules of some kind of amusement park, where almost everything else is allowed.

Tijuana in all its beauty and sadness, with it’s powerful landscapes just as strong as its people, remained the never-ending source of inspiration for this story.

But it wasn’t until much later, even after the script was finished and I was taking the long journey of development and funding, that I returned. And as I walked its streets I understood my dark and strange fascination for this place.

Everything that is hidden in my immediate society, that little itch that always made me feel uncomfortable, that disparity that sometimes seemed to exist only in my mind, a feeling of not belonging, is clear in Tijuana, with no excuses.

My whole existence in Mexico City as a woman is, compared to it, a fantasy in a country torn by violence and social injustice. Here, us women, are products, merchandises meant to be trade. Tijuana condenses everything we fear and all that we are as human beings.

“The darkest days of us” is a parable about memory, destiny, and the very human desire to resist darkness. It is a tribute to our loves, the ones we lost and the ones we find along the way.

Astrid Rondero

Writer and Director