It was an up-and-down day on Friday for the filmmaking team behind the documentary “Selena y Los Dinos,” which tells the story of Tejano music legend Selena Quintanilla and her family band.
The film, directed by Isabel Castro, won a special jury prize from the Sundance Film Festival for archival storytelling. The jury note commended how the film “transported us to a specific time and place, evoking themes of family, heritage, love and adolescence.”
Later in the day, though, the festival announced that the film was being pulled from its online platform, where select films would remain available to credentialed viewers through Sunday. The film had fallen victim to a number of copyright infringements as eager fans were uploading clips from it to social media platforms.
As the statement from the festival read, “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. We take copyright infringement extremely seriously and intend to fully cooperate with local, state, and federal law enforcement.”
In the five years that Sundance has had an online platform, this is the first time a film has been removed during the festival.
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