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1-6 of 6
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Is the son of a Spanish mother and a Chilean father. His family moved back to Spain when he was 1 year old, and he grew up and studied in Madrid. He wrote, produced and directed his first short film La cabeza at the age of 19, and he was 23 when he directed his feature debut Thesis (1996). His film Open Your Eyes (1997) was a huge success in Spain and was distributed worldwide. It was remade in Hollywood by Cameron Crowe as Vanilla Sky (2001), starring Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz (also the star of the original version) and Cameron Diaz. The Others (2001) is Amenábar's first English language film.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Born in January, 1969, she's the daughter of August Gil Matamala, a prestigious lawyer. Grew up studying singing, dancing and the violin. She even appeared occasionally singing with her two brothers in their banda named "Matamala". At 17, she appeared on the cover of an avant-garde Catalonian magazine and from there she began working in local theatre companies and on local Catalonian TV channels, including giving Catalan language classes on Canal 33. It was here where she caught the eye of Bigas Luna, which led to Lola (1986), her first film and, thus, her future was set. It was in 1991 that she became well-known in the film Amo tu cama rica (1992), a comedy with Javier Bardem, consolidated a year later in Fernando Trueba's romantic comedy Belle Epoque (1992), starring Penélope Cruz. However, her better and more serious roles appeared from the mid-nineties onwards, and she showed she was able to take on the most difficult parts, most notably in Malena es un nombre de tango (1996) and Lágrimas negras (1998). She also had time to do a few theatre productions in Catalonia, such as Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull", among other plays. She has a daughter, Violeta Rodríguez, named after her character in Belle Epoque (1992), born from her romance with the director David Trueba. She is extremely interested in working in Iberamerican cinema and has already worked in Argentina. To date, she has shown she is an extremely versatile actress, such that she is known here in Spain as the actress for "impossible roles". Much now depends on whether she can be offered the right parts so that she can continue to develop as a serious character actress.- Writer
- Soundtrack
Born in the ancient roman port today known as Cartagena in the province of Murcia, Spain, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, today the best-selling author in Spain and the best-selling Spanish author in the world, studied Political Sciences and Journalism. He started working as a reporter for the Madrid newspaper "Pueblo" and was twice reported missing -- first in the Sahara in 1975 and two years later in Eritrea. He also reported on the Falkland Isles war in 1982. From there he moved to RTVE as war correspondent and covered bellicose events in Cyprus, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chad, Lebanon, Sudan, Mozambique, Angola, Persian Gulf, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is on his experiences in this last mentioned that his book "Territorio Comanche" is based and which ired RTVE directors, causing Pérez-Reverte to quit. He has since then dedicated himself exclusively to writing and has to date produced about 16 novels, hundreds of articles in magazines, most notably "Semanal TV" and appeared on radio and TV interview shows. He frequently appears at seminars, congresses and book fairs and has received numerous journalist awards from radio, TV and newspapers. He lives in a village outside Madrid with his wife and daughter Carlota. Indeed, his daughter was in great part responsible for the first part of the "Alatriste" novels as she carried out quite a lot of the work of investigating historical documents relating to 17th Century Madrid. His novels have the common thread of being based on real historical times and that in each case a great deal of investigation goes into the making of his stories, as well as the fact that he has had to learn a great deal on topics ranging from chess-playing to historical first-editions, from 16th Century Dutch masters to Informatics and even swordsmanship. His extraordinary imaginative abilities have been able to produce well-written adventure stories. But for Arturo Pérez-Reverte, who has his own yacht which is his great passion, "true freedom starts ten miles out to sea."- Writer
- Director
- Actress
Dolores Payás (sometimes credited as Dolors Payás, her Catalonian name) was born in Manresa, Barcelona, in 1955. Moved to Mexico and matriculated at the Mexican Autonomous National University in the University Centre for Cinematographic Studies department. Her early work started with short films in black and white and her earliest award was from the Mexican Ministry of Culture for her short film "ÓLa Imagen de la Mujer en Medios" in 1995. Between 1980 and 1985 she worked in the Mexican Educational Television Unit, writing more than 200 didactic documentaries. In 1986 she returned to Spain where she shared her time between writing scripts for films and television. Among these, the telefilm "Laia" for TV3 Catalunya and a biographical documentary on the life of the Catalonian architect Gaudí. From there a series of Catalonian projects, from which only "Me Llamo Sara" has reached certain acclaim outside of Catalonia.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Francisco Rabal -- Paco to everyone -- was born in the mining camp where his father worked. His mother owned a small mill. At the age of six, with the Civil War breaking out, the family emigrated to Madrid and he started working as a street salesman and later in a chocolate factory, which later led to him working as an electrician in the Chamartín Film Studios. It was here he started in his first films in crowd scenes and so on. However, following advice from people like Dámaso Alonso, he found his way into the theatre and in 1950 started working with José Tamayo where he met Asunción Balaguer, who was to become his wife and inseparable companion for the rest of his life. One of the plays he starred in was a Spanish version of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." The big breakthrough came when he met Luis Buñuel, one of the greatest of Spanish film directors. They became great friends, in part due to their similar philosophies on life. Nazarín and Viridiana remain as hallmarks of that early period. However, with maturity and the passing of the Franco Régime, Rabal's best work was yet to come, and indeed culminated with his exceptional rôle in _Santos Inocentes, Los (1984)_, one of the best three or four Spanish films of all time. In 1987 he made a wonderful TV series called Juncal (1989) which was probably the character which mostly resembled the real-life Paco Rabal: a veritable "truhan" -- a roguish rascal. However, he has played the character of the Aragonese painter Francisco Goya in three different films, a personage who he became heavily identified with. It is in this period that he received his highest awards in Spain, Cannes, Montreal, etc. He is the only Spanish actor to have been given a Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of his native Murcia. Returning from the XXV Montreal Festival where he was homaged for a lifetime's work, he died over the English Channel aboard the aeroplane bringing him from London to Madrid and, despite the emergency landing in Bordeaux, nothing could be done for him. The pressure inside the plane aggravated his chronic bronchitis and started a fit of coughing which he was not able to overcome. He has published a few books which he called "some little things of mine," but most notably his collection of verses and "coplas" in 1994 and a little later collaborated with Agustín Cerezales on his biography "Si yo te contara" (If I told you all about it). His daughter, Teresa Rabal, is a successful actress, singer and TV presenter, while his son, Benito, also works as film director.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Born in the small village of Poza de la Sal, in the Castilian province of Burgos, on the 14th March 1928. He grew up in the midst of the wonders of nature and the Spanish Civil war, and then studied medicine at the university of Valladolid where he graduated as a specialist in dentistry. He became an expert in falconry and in 1960 he was employed by the Saudi Arabian king together with two excellent specimens presented by the Franco Government to King Saud. Thanks to generous donations by the Saudi king and the collaboration of a number of Grandees (Spanish Aristocrats) he was able to produce his first documentary programme "Señores del Espacio." The success of this documentary allowed him to embark on his second great passion: an exhaustive study of the lives of wild wolves - which fortunately still exist today in Spain, probably due to Rodríguez's tireless work in conserving this and other species in danger of extinction, such as the Iberian lynx, several species of eagles, and Cantabrian and Pyrenean bears. He later travelled extensively in Africa and South America, from which he made a number of documentary programmes. But in 1974 he started on his most ambitious work and the one he will always be rembered for: El Hombre y La Tierra. Starting off from some of his earlier work, such as Wolves (El Lobo), Otters (La Nutria), etc, he made up an exceptional series of documentaries on Iberian fauna which has never been equalled. The series includes such subjects as hunting dogs, the last vultures in Europe, foxes, deer, storks, etc., and a special on the Doñana National Park (World Heritage Listed). All this when "ecology" was still a rather unknown word and had not come into fashion. Thanks to his work many species have survived and parks have been created for the protection of wildlife. The whole series of 26 parts exists in video, made by RTVE and licenced to a private distributor. These programmes are not only excellent for nature lovers, but also for students of the Spanish language, as his speaking is clear and easily understood. Whilst filming Los Perros del Mundo (Dogs of the World) in Shaktoolik, Alaska, he died in an aeroplane accident, on his fifty-second birthday, 1980.