Alejandro Amenábar
| Alejandro Amenábar | |
|---|---|
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Amenábar in 2015
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| Born |
Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos March 31, 1972 Santiago, Chile |
| Nationality | Chilean-Spanish |
| Occupation |
Film director, screen play writer and composer |
| Spouse(s) | David Blanco (m. 2015) |
Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos, commonly known as Alejandro Amenábar (born March 31, 1972), is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and composer. Among other honors, he has won nine Goyas, two European Film Award and an Oscar. He has written or co-written the screenplays to all six of his movies and composed almost all of the soundtracks.
Amenábar is the son of a Chilean man, Hugo Ricardo Amenabar and a Spanish woman, Josefina Cantos. He has a dual Chilean-Spanish citizenship. His father worked as a technician at General Electric, while his mother decided to stay at home and take care of the children. Alejandro is the younger of two brothers; his older brother, Ricardo, was born December 4, 1969.
Josefina's older sister had moved to the capital of Chile, Santiago, and she invited Josefina to join her there. In Santiago, Josefina met Hugo. Alejandro was born on March 31, 1972.
In August 1973, his family moved to Spain. The family settled in Madrid, living in a camping caravan. When Alejandro was six years old, they moved to a complex on the outskirts of the town of Paracuellos de Jarama (Madrid).
Alejandro and his brother did not watch much television. From the age of 15, Alejandro would dedicate his time to going to the cinema to watch movies. Other than theater, his passions were writing stories and reading books. According to Alejandro’s mother, Alejandro had the capacity to absorb everything he read. As a child, he also composed melodies with the keyboard and guitar with the same ease as when he wrote his stories.
Alejandro started his studies at the Padres Escolapios de Getafe school. In his second year of high school, he transferred to the Alameda de Osuna institute, in the north-east of Madrid. The school was not close to where Alejandro was living; however, his parents, who were very concerned about his education, decided to enroll him in that institute because it was known as one of the best schools in Madrid.
Before he became a director, Alejandro worked as a stock boy in a warehouse and as a gardener, until he had enough money to buy his own home camera. He did not want to start his university studies in cinema before ever having touched a camera. Amenábar entered the Information Sciences Faculty at Madrid's Complutense University, where after numerous scholastic failures he decided to give up studying cinema and he began directing. The advantage from having attended university was that he met people who later in life would become very important throughout his career (that was the case for Sergio Rozas and Carlos Montero, through whom he met Eduardo Noriega). At university, he also met Mateo Gil, a friend and companion, and the pair made a pact to always support each other's projects.
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Wikipedia