Allon Sylvain

Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos is a Spanish director, screenwriter, and actor of Chilean origin. Born in Santiago, Chile, to a Chilean father, Hugo Ricardo Amenábar, and a Spanish mother, Josefina Cantos, he fled to Spain with his family due to the pressures of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship and grew up in Madrid. He studied communication sciences at the Universidad Complutense. Soon after, he became interested in cinema. His first work, La cabeza, along with many other short films, won awards. His first feature film, Tesis (1996), won the Goya Award for Best Film. In 1997, he proved his quality to the world at a young age with Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes). In 2001, he made his first Hollywood film, The Others, starring Nicole Kidman. Amenábar sold the rights to Abre los ojos to American actor Tom Cruise's production company, leading to the production of Vanilla Sky (2001). In 2004, he returned to his homeland with Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside), entrusting the lead role to Javier Bardem, achieving great success. This film, telling the story of a man with spinal cord paralysis, won 14 Goya Awards and the European Film Award for Best Director. The film won a Golden Globe and an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. He directed Agora in 2009 and Regression in 2015. Amenábar, who came out as gay in 2004, married David Blanco in 2015.