Quinceañera also received the Audience Award in the Dramatic Competition at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
The award is notable because the film won both a jury prize and an audience prize at the festival. Its other major Sundance honor was the Grand Jury Prize in the Dramatic Competition. Together, the awards showed recognition from both festival jurors and viewers.
The film tells the story of Magdalena, a teenager in Los Angeles whose quinceañera is disrupted by personal and family complications. Emily Rios stars as Magdalena, and Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland directed.
An Audience Award is determined by festival attendees’ responses rather than solely by an appointed jury. It therefore differs from the Grand Jury Prize, even though both honors were awarded to Quinceañera at the same 2006 festival.