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Just hours after winning a Sundance Film Festival award, Isabel Castro’s documentary “Selena y Los Dinos” has been removed from the festival’s streaming site. That’s because, as IndieWire understands, viewers at home were uploading self-recorded clips of the film to social media.
On Friday afternoon, the festival sent an email to accredited press, noting the removal. It read: “The Sundance Film Festival and the creative team of ‘Selena y Los Dinos‘ are sorry to inform our viewers that the film has suffered a series of copyright infringements and must therefore be removed from the Sundance Film Festival online platform. We regret that you will no longer be able to access the film on the platform. We acknowledge and regret that this may cause disappointment, however part of our commitment to advocating for independent filmmakers is ensuring that they can protect their art that they have created and earn a living — now and in the future.”
The email concluded, “We take copyright infringement extremely seriously and intend to fully cooperate with local, state, and federal law enforcement.”
In the five years of making its lineup available online to ticket-holders, starting in 2021 when the festival went temporarily virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no other film is believed to have been pulled from the platform due to similar concerns.
A source tells IndieWire the issue stemmed from viewers posting their own clips of the film on social media. It’s not an issue with the contents of the film itself, which includes a treasure trove of archival footage and follows the life and career of the beloved late Tejano pop star Selena Quintanilla.
Ryan Lattanzio contributed reporting.
English (US) ·