Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos (born March 31, 1972) is a Chilean-born Spanish film director, widely considered one of the most important Spanish directors working today even though he has directed only four films.

Amenábar was born in Santiago, Chile in 1972, to a Spanish mother and Chilean father. The family returned to Spain in 1973, and Amenábar has dual nationality from Spain and Chile. He studied cinema at Madrid's Universidad Complutense but eventually dropped out -- later using the name of a lecturer who kept failing him, Castro, for a villainous professor in his feature debut, Tesis.

In addition to writing and directing his own films, Amenábar has maintained a notable career as a composer of film scores, including the Goya-nominated score for José Luis Cuerda 's La lengua de las mariposas .

Amenábar was awarded the Grand Prix of the Jury at the International Venice Film Festival in 2004 for Mar adentro, and in February 2005 the same film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Filmography

• Tesis ('Thesis', 1995, also known as Snuff)
• Abre los ojos ('Open your Eyes', 1997)
• The Others (2001) - With Nicole Kidman
• Mar adentro ('The Sea Inside', 2004)

External links

• Official website