“Selena y Los Dinos” Director & Suzette at Billboard Latin Music Week

Selena Quintanilla is undoubtedly one of the pinnacles of Latin music. At this year’s Billboard Latin Music Week in Miami, Selena’s sister, Suzette joined director, Isabel Castro to give attendees an exclusive look at their upcoming Netflix documentary, during the “Selena y Los Dinos” Panel. Not only did Suzette, who serves as an executive producer on the film, share memories of being a band, she showed home videos from the family’s personal archive, which can be seen for the first time when the Netflix documentary premiers on November 17, 2025. 

Billboard’s assistant editor Latin, Jessica Roiz, moderated the conversation which explored Selena’s meteoric rise to fame, her dreams for the future, and the impact of family on her and her career. They kicked off the panel by showing the trailer for the film. It’s full of inspiring words from Selena herself, interviews with the Quintanilla family and bandmates, and a ton of home movies. They granted Castro unprecedented access to their personal media collection and sat down for in-depth interviews in the documentary to show viewers a side of the Queen of Tejano Music which only those closest to her would know. 

Suzette explained what it was like welcoming Castro into their world. “I gave her a key to what we call ‘The Vault’.” The director went on to describe The Vault as “a medium sized room and there are floor to ceiling bookcases with hundreds if not thousands of VHS tapes, Betacams, CDs, flash drives.” The first step in making the documentary was digitizing all of the personal footage and stringing it out before even interviewing the family.

Suzette shared why this was the first documentary their family wanted to participate in and why Isabel was the perfect director for this monumental film. Four to five years ago, Suzette asked her lawyer to find someone that could help the Quintanilla family finally tell their own story. He found Castro’s 2022 award-winning documentary “Mija” and was inspired to set up a meeting between the two, over Zoom. Suzette said, “Instantly, I knew that she was going to be the person that was able to tell this story for us.” The two bonded over being big sisters and now call each other friends.

Fans will see Selena as a sister, daughter, and wife in “Selena y Los Dinos” through never-before-seen footage and first-hand accounts from her parents, sister, brother, husband and bandmates. In one clip shared with attendees, the family describes how they saw the joy that Cumbia music brought their community and how the entire family was essential in developing that sound. By seeing what happened behind the scenes, Castro was moved to show the importance of family in what Selena would become. She said, “I was a Selena fan, but I didn’t totally understand the extent of it until I made this project. As I was discovering that, it was really important to me that that was a main focus of the film. And that’s why it’s called ‘Selena y Los Dinos’” Suzette reaffirmed what Isabel felt while making the film saying “Yes, Selena was the star, and she will continue to be that, but there was another element that made Selena as well. And that was our family and our family band.” 

Suzette, Isabel, and Jessica ended their conversation by discussing what they hope viewers take away from the film. For Suzette, she said “What I would love for them to take away is that we’re a normal family that started a band that became global.” For Isabel, she wants to celebrate bi-cultural identities, saying “I want people to see this and how much joy and pride there can be in not being from here or there but being from a mixture of two places. I just think that’s so beautiful.” And that diversity is seen and appreciated within Selena’s fandom. Suzette described the pride she feels for the more than two generations of fans her sister has. “Selena is not just a Latin artist. She is global. She is a global artist, and it doesn’t matter what nationality you are, you listen to her music and you’re a fan. And for that I am grateful.” 
  
There is no denying the impact Selena Quintanilla has had on the Latin music world and pop culture at large. We’ve seen the talent and charisma which made her a top tier artist and performer. Soon, you can see what made Selena a superstar at home in the eyes of her family when “Selena y Los Dinos” premieres on November 17, 2025, only on Netflix.