(Alejandro Amenábar, Spain/France/US 2001, 105 min., 35mm)
Director/composer Alejandro Amenábar was born in Santiago, Chile to a Chilean father and a Spanish mother. His family moved to Spain when he was young, but his passions as a teenager were writing, music, and cinema, which would all play into his career later on. He burst onto the world cinema scene with Abre los ojos (1997), which was later re-made by Cameron Crowe as Vanilla Sky (2001), and The Others, his first Hollywood studio film. His career hit its highest point with the release of The Sea Inside (Mar adento, 2004), which earned fourteen Goyas, more than any other film before or since, and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Others is not just a high point in Amenábar’s career, it is also an excellent example of the influence gothic literature and aesthetic has had on South American narratives. Amenábar not only directed the film, but also wrote the screenplay and composed the musical score for the film. It features Nicole Kidman as a war widow in 1945 Great Britain, living in a large mansion with her two photosensitive children, who comes to believe the house is haunted. In addition to being a part of the Hispanic Heritage Month series, The Others will also kick off our series of films celebrating Halloween this year.