Quinceañera won both the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
The film was written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. It follows Magdalena, a teenager in Los Angeles whose planned quinceañera becomes entangled with family conflict and changing relationships. Emily Rios played Magdalena in her breakthrough feature-film role.
Winning both awards gave the film recognition from the festival jury and its audience. The double win is a specific Sundance achievement and helps distinguish the movie from other coming-of-age films featuring Latino families.
The film’s title is the Spanish word for the celebration itself. Its plot is fictional, but its cultural setting draws on the real quinceañera tradition. Sundance’s U.S. Dramatic categories are festival awards, not Academy Awards, Golden Globes, or prizes for a documentary.