Quinceañera (film)
| Quinceañera | |
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Promotional poster for Quinceañera
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| Directed by |
Richard Glatzer Wash Westmoreland |
| Produced by | Anne Clements |
| Written by | Richard Glatzer Wash Westmoreland |
| Starring |
Emily Rios Jesse Garcia Chalo González |
| Music by | Victor Bock Michael B. Jeter J. Peter Robinson Micko Westmoreland |
| Cinematography | Eric Steelberg |
| Edited by | Robin Katz Clay Zimmerman |
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Production
company |
Cinetic Media
Kitchen Sink Entertainment |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Classics |
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Release date
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Running time
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90 minutes |
| Language | English, Spanish |
| Budget | $400,000 |
| Box office | $2.5 million |
Quinceañera (English: "Fifteen-year-old", referring to a coming-of-age ceremony in Latin American communities) is a 2006 American independent drama film written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. Set in Echo Park, Los Angeles, the film follows the lives of two young Mexican American cousins who become estranged from their families—Magdalena (played by Emily Rios) because of her unwed teenage pregnancy and Carlos (Jesse Garcia) because of his homosexuality—and are taken in by their elderly great-uncle Tomas (Chalo González).
The film was inspired by Glatzer and Westmoreland's experience as a white gay couple moving into the gentrifying neighborhood of Echo Park, a predominantly Latino working-class community. They wrote, cast and filmed Quinceañera over four months in 2005 after securing a US$400,000 budget from investors. It was filmed in Echo Park with the assistance of Glatzer and Westmoreland's neighbors and a cast of largely nonprofessional actors. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2006, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award. It was released in the United States on August 2, 2006, to mostly positive reviews and earned $2.5 million at the box office.
Magdalena, a fourteen-year-old girl from a working-class Mexican American family in Echo Park, Los Angeles, attends her cousin Eileen's quinceañera, an extravagant coming-of-age ceremony to celebrate her fifteenth birthday. Eileen's older brother Carlos—who has been disowned by his family due to his homosexuality and now lives with his great-uncle Tomas—arrives at the celebrations but is forced to leave by his father. Magdalena herself is about to turn fifteen but her parents cannot afford to host a quinceañera as lavish as Eileen's, and they deny her repeated requests to hire a Hummer limousine for the occasion. While preparing for her quinceañera, Magdalena learns that she is pregnant by her friend Herman although they had only once engaged in non-penetrative intercourse. Her Christian father is furious, believing that Magdalena has had premarital sex despite her protestations that she is still a virgin. She leaves her family to move in with Tomas and Carlos and continues to see Herman until she discovers that his mother has sent him away to live with relatives to prevent him from seeing Magdalena.
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