A new Netflix doc offers an intimate portrait of Selena, straight from her family’s vault
NEW YORK (AP) — For many, the name Selena Quintanilla-Pérez is the stuff of mythology. The Queen of Tejano broke barriers for women in Latin music genres of all kinds; it’s easy to see the through line between her contributions to the current success of regional Mexicana music. But it’s been 30 years since the singer known simply as Selena was killed at 23 — and those who love her are working hard to ensure her legacy endures for decades to come.
One such example: “Selena Y Los Dinos: A Family’s Legacy,” a documentary from director Isabel Castro and executive produced by Selena’s siblings, Suzette Quintanilla and AB Quintanilla III. It hits Netflix on Monday.
“I do understand that what Selena means so many years later, to the Latino world,” Suzette Quintanilla says. “Who better than to tell our story other than us?”
Making the movie
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.
“Suzette, we 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 cataloging “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 Quintanilla says of their collection. “We have everything that you could possibly think of.”
Across the footage, Selena the sister, daughter and person emerged — not just the superstar face of her family’s band, Los Dinos. The moments that meant the most to Castro were 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 Quintanilla 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.”
