Spanish filmmaker ALEJANDRO FERNANDO AMENÁBAR CANTOS was born in Santiago, Chile. In addition to writing and directing his own films, Amenábar has maintained a notable career as a composer of film scores, including the Goya Awards-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 (“The Sea Inside”) starring Javier Bardem, and in February 2005 the same film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In February 2004, Amenábar came out to the Spanish Gay magazine Shangay Express. In 2008 Amenábar shot an epic (and in this writer’s humble opinion, beautiful) film called Agora, starring Rachel Weisz, which he wrote with Mateo Gill. Set in Roman Egypt, the film is based on the life of philosopher and mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria. The editor highly recommends the film. 

In July 2015, Canto married David Blanco.