First Selena family-supported documentary to premiere at Sundance

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The Sundance Institute announced that “Selena y Los Dinos” will be part of the 87 feature films and six episodic projects selected for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. 

“Selena y Los Dinos” is the first documentary about the Tejano music icon supported by the Quintanilla family. It is directed by Isabel Castro and produced by Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, J. Daniel Torres, David Blackman and Simran Singh.

Selena Quintanilla, the “Queen of Tejano Music” and her family band, Selena y Los Dinos, rose from performing at quinceañeras to selling out stadium tours. The celebration of her life and legacy is chronicled through never-before-seen footage from the family’s personal archive. 

It will premiere at the Sundance Festival and it will also be available online for the public at festival.sundance.org. 

The Festival will take place from January 23 through February 2, 2025, in person in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, with all of the competition films and more available online from January 30 though February 2, 2025, for audiences across the country. 

Beginning January 30, more than half the feature program will be available online for audiences nationwide to watch from home. The curated online program will include all competition titles as well as additional selections from the feature, episodic and Short Film Program, presented by Vimeo. 

“The Sundance Film Festival remains steadfast in its commitment to elevating unique and urgent voices in independent storytelling. Audiences can expect a 2025 program that showcases varied and vibrant filmmaking globally,” said Robert Redford, Sundance Institute founder and president.

“The Festival is our most significant public program as an Institute and builds on the artist support work we do year-round as a nonprofit that seeks to make meaningful storytelling accessible and sustainable,” said Amanda Kelso, Sundance Institute acting CEO. “Our curation speaks to the breadth and depth of filmmaking today, and the work of the artists selected showcases the potential for storytelling to drive change through open dialogue while engaging audiences.”

“For nearly a year our team has been preparing for today, the moment when we can finally reveal the filmmakers who, in a few short weeks, we’ll present at the 2025 edition of the Sundance Film Festival,” said Eugene Hernandez, director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programming. “This year’s program is ready to meet our audiences, the industry and the wider culture in a moment of many global questions. The works our artists will debut at our upcoming Festival will spark conversation and invite connection. We’re excited to be sharing these moments of discovery together with our communities soon and thankful to our artists for entrusting us with their stories.”

“This year’s program presents stories that confront many critical issues of our time, encouraging us to look both inward and outward. As always, we’re excited to introduce audiences to new voices, alongside new work from some familiar names,” said Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival director of programming. “Audiences at the Festival can not only look forward to engaging with the unexpected, but also to be entertained, challenged and deeply moved by this year’s films.”

The festival will also feature films from their archive such as "El Norte," directed and co-written by Gregory Nava. The story revolves around Indigenous siblings Rosa and Enrique who flee up “Norte” to the United States for a chance at survival after their family is murdered by the government in a massacre during the Guatemalan Civil War. When they arrive, they find life in the U.S. is not what they had hoped for.