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. It was released in the United States on August 2, 2006, to mostly positive reviews and earned $2.5 million at the box office. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2006, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award. It was filmed in Echo Park with the assistance of Glatzer and Westmoreland's neighbors and a cast of largely nonprofessional actors.
They wrote, cast and filmed Quinceañera over four months in 2005 after securing a US$400,000 budget from investors. 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 Hispanic working-class community.
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). Quinceañera (English: 'Fifteen-year-old') is a 2006 American independent drama film written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland.
