Netflix doc opens the family vault on singer Selena

NEW YORK (AP):

For many, Selena Quintanilla-Pérez has taken on a mythical status. The Queen of Tejano broke barriers for women in Latin music, and her influence is evident in today’s regional Mexicana boom.

Thirty years after she was killed at 23, her supporters continue to safeguard her legacy. One example is Selena Y Los Dinos: A Family’s Legacy, a documentary directed by Isabel Castro and executive produced by her siblings, Suzette Quintanilla and AB Quintanilla III, which debuts on Netflix on Monday.

“I do understand that what Selena means so many years later, to the Latino world,” Suzette says. “Who better than to tell our story other than us?”

The Quintanilla family, ready to share with the world never-before-seen archival material, reached out to Castro following the release of her 2022 film Mija, sensing she might be the correct person to tell Selena’s story.

“ [When] Suzette [and I met] we kind of immediately hit it off,” says Castro. “We are both older sisters.” The feeling was mutual. “She was a fan,” says Suzette Quintanilla. “She totally understood the struggle between being Mexican American and embracing both cultures.”

Then the work began: years of combing through and cataloguing “floor-to-ceiling, like, DVDs, VHSes, canisters of raw film, flash drives,” says Castro. There were duplicates, too, which required identifying the best quality footage – all the while “trying to turn a myth into a personal story,” she said.

“We call it ‘the vault’,” Suzette says of their collection. “We have everything that you could possibly think of.”

Across the footage, Selena the sister, daughter, and person emerges – not just the superstar fronting her family’s band, Los Dinos. The moments that meant the most to Castro are the most intimate: Suzette holding a camcorder and filming her sister, a handwritten letter Selena gave to her husband Chris Pérez, and scenes from inside their first tour bus, the infamous Big Bertha.

Selena’s mother, Marcella Quintanilla, had not done an interview about her late daughter since her death – and even before, remained largely behind the scenes. For the documentary, she opened up, sharing photo albums and reflecting publicly for the first time.

“I love my mom in the documentary,” Suzette beams.

Selena “became representative of something so vital for me about, like, what it means to be a Latina in this country”, says Castro. “Seeing the home video reminded me that she was just a young girl who died when she was 23.”

CULTURAL ICON

For those who grew up with the music of Selena as a cultural touchstone, it might seem like her story is well-mined: There is the now-classic 1997 biopic Selena, which helped launch the career of its lead Jennifer Lopez, a 2020 Netflix series and much more. Selena Y Los Dinos nods to that legacy, but appeals to both the loyal fan and the viewer who might only know her name.

“The most challenging part of the editing process was trying to thread the needle between making this film for her built in audience – which is vast and extremely dedicated and extremely knowledgeable – and new audiences around the world and also new generations,” says Castro.

For those not well-versed in her music, Selena’s public-facing story often focuses on the details surrounding her death. (Selena was killed by her fan club’s president, Yolanda Saldívar, in 1995. Saldívar, serving a life sentence in Texas, was denied parole in March.) Selena Y Los Dinos doesn’t spend much time at all with the end of her extraordinary life.

“We do not focus on the murder,” says Castro, who says her film is about a Latina’s joy and power. “I’m kind of fed up with this expectation that Latino stories are often centred around victimhood.”

“This is about her life, our life and our growth, and telling our story at Selena Y Los Dinos,” says Suzette. .