Country: Spain, Italy
Year: 2025
Duration: 134'
1575: Wounded and captured by corsairs, Miguel de Cervantes is taken and imprisoned in Algiers, while his captors demand a ransom far too high to be paid. In prison, he finds refuge in writing: he crafts stories, reads them to his fellow inmates, and turns waiting into a suspended time, vibrant with words. His tales capture the attention of Hasan, the feared governor, with whom an unusual bond begins to form. Yet Cervantes never stops pursuing freedom and, with relentless determination, plans his escape.
Biography
film director
Alejandro Amenábar
(Santiago, Chile, 1972) raised in Spain, where he received his artistic training, Alejandro Amenábar has, from the very beginning, shown a rare ability to weave psychological introspection with refined and complex narrative structures, establishing himself as one of the most versatile and recognizable authors in contemporary European cinema. With Tesis (1996), his striking debut, he explored the perverse relationship between violence and representation, while in Abre los ojos (1997), later adapted by Cameron Crowe as Vanilla Sky, he crafted a vertiginous reflection on identity, perception, and illusion. International success came with The Others (2001), a sophisticated exercise in Gothic suspense starring Nicole Kidman, which revealed his mastery in combining genre archetypes with metaphysical reflection. In 2004 he won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film with The Sea Inside, an intense portrait of Ramón Sampedro and his battle for the right to euthanasia, confirming his sensitivity to ethical issues and human dignity. He then directed Agora (2009), a historical-ideological fresco on religious intolerance in antiquity, and Regression (2015), a return to psychological thriller with a darkly moral undertone. With While at War (2019), he tackled the Spanish Civil War and the figure of Miguel de Unamuno, demonstrating a directorial maturity that intertwines history and identity reflection. In 2025 he directed The Captive, dedicated to the life of Spain’s greatest writer, Miguel de Cervantes.
FILMOGRAFIA
Himenóptero (cm, 1992), Luna (cm, 1995), Tesis (1996), Abre los ojos (Apri gli occhi, 1997), The Others (2001), Mar adentro (Mare dentro, 2004), Agora (2009), Nancys Rubias: Me encanta (I Love It) (videoclip, 2013), Vale (cm, 2015), Regression (2015), Danielle (cm, 2017), Mientras dure la guerra (Lettera a Franco, 2019), La fortuna (6 ep, serie tv, 2021), El cautivo (Il prigioniero, 2025).
Declaration
film director
“In this film, as in my previous ones, I have played with contrasts: from the dark reality in which Miguel de Cervantes lived to the power of his stories; from his epic escape attempts to the harsh conditions of captivity; from the cruelty of his jailers to the sensual paradise and lush exuberance of the hammam, all the way to the liveliness of the streets of Algiers. Miguel de Cervantes experienced all of this, and it is precisely what shaped the humanism and complexity of his work. It is well known that one of the stories in Don Quixote, entitled The Captive, contains numerous autobiographical references. Miguel de Cervantes left behind a great untold story: his own. It is time to uncover it.”
Cast
& Credits
DIRECTOR, SCREENPLAY, MUSIC: Alejandro Amenábar. Alex Catalán. FILM EDITING: Carolina Martínez Urbina. PRODUCTION DESIGN: Juan Pedro De Gaspar. COSTUME DESIGN: Nicoletta Taranta. SOUND: Aitor Berenguer. CAST: Julio Peña, Alessandro Borghi, Miguel Rellán, Fernando Tejero, Luis Callejo, José Manuel Poga, Roberto Álamo, Albert Salazar, Juanman Muniagurria, César Sarachu. PRODUCTION: Alejandro Amenábar, Fernando Bovaira, Simón de Santiago, Urko Errazquin, Martina Marzotto, Mattia Oddone for Mod Producciones, Himenóptero, Misent Producciones S.L., Propaganda Italia, Rai Cinema, Netflix, Radio Televisión Español (RTVE) with the support of Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales (ICAA), Generalitat Valenciana, Regione Lazio, Eurimages.
CONTACT: Lucky Red info@luckyred.it
