Quinceañera is the 2006 English-language film about a Mexican American teenager in East Los Angeles preparing for her fifteenth-birthday celebration.
The film was written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. Emily Rios plays Magdalena, a teenager whose plans for her quinceañera are disrupted by a pregnancy. The story also follows family relationships and tensions within a Mexican American community.
Quinceañera premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006, where it won both the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award. Those honors brought attention to its depiction of Latino family life and queer characters in an independent-film setting.
The film should not be confused with the broader cultural tradition, which is practiced in many countries and communities. Its title refers to the central celebration, while the movie uses that event as the framework for a coming-of-age drama.