‘Selena Y Los Dinos’: Sundance Review

Dir: Isabel Castro. US. 2025. 110mins

On the time of her homicide in 1995, aged simply 23, Latina singer Selena Quintanilla-Perez had already been dubbed ’The Queen of Tejano Music’, and was on the point of breaking into the English-speaking market. Now, 30 years later, this warm-hearted, complete documentary explores Selena’s life and enduring affect from the viewpoint of those that knew her finest — her household. (Her father and siblings performed alongside Selena in Los Dinos, giving the movie an insider’s perspective.)

 Supplies a window into the true Selena.

Directed by TV documentarian and cinematographer Isabel Castro, Selena Y Los Dinos follows a gradual stream of works concerning the singer. These include1997 documentary Selena Remembered; biopic Selena, additionally launched in 1997, which launched the profession of star Jennifer Lopez; 2020 Netflix two-part drama Selena: The Sequence; and episodes of music and true crime exhibits. Selena’s recognition endures and this new movie, which premieres in Sundance’s US Documentary competitors, can have prompt enchantment to her followers — not least as a result of it’s the first to have the enter of Selena’s household, and options never-before-seen archive materials.

Bookending her movie with TV interviews during which Selena talks about her profession ambitions and, poignantly, how she want to be remembered, Castro takes a regular chronological strategy. The movie charts the Texas-born Selena’s rise from singing at quinceañeras, to having hits with songs like ‘Como la Flor’ and ’Bidi Bidi Bom Bom’ and filling big stadiums by way of the standard beats: rehearsals, early gigs, rising media curiosity, document contracts and dwell exhibits. Whereas Selena’s uncooked expertise and infectious character are an enormous draw, the movie’s actual promoting level is its entry to Selena’s household, open and trustworthy of their recollections.

Selena’s father Abraham speaks candidly about how the formation of the household band within the early Eighties was right down to a mixture of his personal artistic ambitions as a member of the unique Nineteen Sixties Los Dinos group, and monetary desperation. Selena’s brother Abraham Jr, guitarist, songwriter and producer, and sister Suzette, the band’s initially reluctant drummer, focus on their shut relationship with their sister and the collaborative function they noticed themselves taking part in in her success. (Selena is seen to be devoted to her household, if delicate to the truth that her transfer in the direction of the English-speaking market could have meant leaving them behind.)

Selena’s husband and former bandmate Chris Perez reveals one other side of the singer; an impulsive, romantic and cussed aspect at odds with the cool, highly effective lady who held sway over audiences, document execs and journalists. Numerous musicians and producers additionally converse to her expertise and dedication.

In different moments, the movie touches on problems with gender and race, each of that are an intrinsic a part of Selena’s story. Curiously, within the early phases of her fame, Selena couldn’t converse Spanish, regardless of studying many Spanish-language songs by rote. And whereas, as a teenager, she was extra all in favour of listening to pop, rock and disco – sounds that may affect each her and her brother – Latino music helped her reconnect together with her heritage.

Given the character of the movie, and its contributors, Selena Y Los Dinos maintains an unsurprisingly upbeat, celebratory really feel, and doesn’t linger on Selena’s homicide by the hands of the previous president of her fan membership in March 1995. Editor Carolina Siraqyan (who additionally labored on Maite Alberdi’s Oscar-nominated The Mole Agent) knits collectively lots of of hours of personal and public footage, giving the movie a dynamic tempo to match its topic’s vitality and foregrounding the house movies that present a window into the ’actual’ Selena.