“There was a moment in your interview that almost brought me to my knees,” says Isabel Castro, director of “Selena and Los Dinos.”
Previous scripted projects that sought to tell Selena Quintanilla’s story (a 1997 feature film starring Jennifer Lopez and a two-season Netflix series) were peppered with what the late singer’s sister Suzette called “Hollywood glitter.”
This time, she says, is different.
Netflix’s new documentary “Selena and Los Dinos” (available November 17th) provides an intimate look at the “Queen of Tejano Music” through interviews with those closest to her and never-before-seen home video footage.
“This documentary is completely different because it’s raw footage. We’re talking about what life was like back then and what’s going on now, what life is like and that it’s real,” says Suzette, who is producing the film with her brother Abraham “AB” Quintanilla III.
“So, nothing could be more real than having my mom and dad, my brother, her husband (guitarist Chris Perez), my bandmates, and me participate in telling our story,” she added.
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez remembers making her first appearance at the age of six in Mexican director Isabel Castro’s Selena y Los Dinos, and from then on appearing mostly for relatives, with AB strumming the bass guitar and Suzette playing the drums. Their father, Abraham, the band’s manager, envisioned his children as “Mexican Jacksons,” AB said in the documentary..
Formed in 1981 by the patriarch, Selena y Los Dinos was a huge success, and Selena’s star continued to shine after she signed with EMI Latin in 1989. The “Amor Prohibido” singer won his first Grammy Award in 1994 for Best Album by a Mexican-American, and his second gold-plated gramophone received a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021.
Selena was shot and killed by former fan club president Yolanda Saldívar in 1995 at the age of 23. In March, exactly 30 years since her death, Selena’s universal appeal and classic hits like “Como La Flor” and “Dreaming of You” earned her the No. 3 spot on Billboard’s ranking of the 50 Greatest Female Latin Pop Artists of All Time.
New Netflix doc reveals first interview with Selena Quintanilla’s ‘very shy’ mother
The upcoming documentary records the first interview with Selena and Suzette’s “very shy” mother, Marcela Quintanilla. “My mother doesn’t seem to want to appear on camera because she hasn’t gotten over her sister’s death yet,” Suzette said.
Marcela, 81, was hesitant, but ultimately agreed to participate at her daughter’s request.
“I told her I really feel like now is the time to have the conversation[and]get you involved, because you’re part of it,” Suzette said. “You’re our mom. You’ve always been there for us. You were in a lot of the footage because we all travel together. So she just looked at me. She said, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.'”
‘Selena and Los Dinos’ director thoroughly investigates ‘hundreds of hours of footage’
“There was a moment in your interview that almost brought me to my knees,” says Castro, director of the Netflix doc “Selena y Los Dinos.”
“It was very difficult to stay calm during the interview,” the filmmaker added. When Abraham learned that Selena and Perez were dating, he got into an argument with Perez, now 56, which resulted in him leaving the band.
In the documentary, Perez reads a letter from Selena, expressing how much she loved and missed him during the time they were apart. “After he read it, it felt like the air was sucked out of the room, and we were all kind of stunned,” Castro recalled.
Castro said he conducted interviews with Selena’s inner circle and combed through “hundreds of hours of footage” to assemble the pieces of the documentary’s puzzle.
“Selena and Los Dinos” premiered at Sundance earlier this year and was later released to local audiences at SXSW in March.
The director watched home movies, performances, and interviews with Selena and her family. She prioritized homemade videos because they were “a window into the life of the Quintanilla family that few people have ever seen.”
Castro is known for her work in the 2014 documentary Crossing Over: A Story of Immigration and Identity, about three trans women who immigrated to the United States from Mexico. In 2022, she worked on “Mija,” released on Disney+, about two daughters of undocumented immigrants as they pursue careers in the music industry.
Suzette recalls the moment she went ‘back’ to when her sister Serena was alive
The moments shared on the band’s tour bus, affectionately known as Big Bertha, are among the most meaningful to Suzette.
She remembers being stretched out in a sleeping bag on a “ridiculously hot” bus with no air conditioning. “Moments like that are the moments that kind of take you back,” Suzette says. “When I see that, I’m moved.”
“That’s a special moment for me. Even though we were just eating McDonald’s and hanging out on an empty bus, the time we spent together was the most meaningful to me,” she recalls.
Suzette says the film gives her a sense of happiness and pride in reaching audiences around the world, old and new.
“This brings joy to my heart. If my sister were here, she would feel the same way,” she says. “Because in every interview she talks about how proud she is of her heritage and who she is and where we come from.”
