Alejandro Amenábar is barely 30 years old and already established in Hollywood - quite an achievment for a European filmmaker. His first feature TESIS (1996), made when the young director was 24, is - next to Ole Bornedal's NATTEVAGTEN (1994) and Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS (1992) - the best debut film of the 1990s. Amenabar followed this act with the thriller ABRE LOS OJOS (1997), which was re-discovered by Hollywood and remade in 2001 as VANILLA SKY, starring none other than Tom Cruise. It was Mr Cruise, who co-funded Amenábar's Hollywood debut, the spine-tingling chiller THE OTHERS (2001). Amenábar has Chilean roots (like the notorious Alejandro Jodorowsky) and usually also writes the music to his films.