Using the definition of the border film genre, and concepts like space and place, this article will analyse how Maria Novaro’s films El jardin del Eden/ The Garden of Eden (1994) and Sin dejar huella/ Without a Trace (2000) helped destroying stereotypes that had been built in commercial movies during decades by creating, through characters and images, first the city of Tijuana as a mosaic, then the southern border of Mexico as a utopia; this will be done by analysing how she constructs the idea of region and regional identity by denying the homogeneous traces sustaining national identity.