Alejandro Fernandéz Almendras graduated from the School of Journalism of the University of Chile. Later he moved thanks to a scholarship to the United States, which allowed him to complete a Diploma in Social Communication and Realization at the New School University of New York and work until 2007 at Agencia EFE. He also devoted himself to film criticism. Since 2003, Fernández Almendras has worked as a film director. In 2007 he made the short film LO QUE TRAE LA LLUVIA, a fictional work about a couple of elderly peasants from southern Chile waiting for the visit of their daughter and grandson. This earned him a circuit of more than 30 international festivals and winning the Best Latin American Short Film Award of the Ibero-American Short Film Festival. In 2009, HUACHO, his first feature film, was premiered at the Cannes Critics’ Week and won the NHK prize at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as Best Film at the International Film Festival of Viña del Mar. In 2014, his third feature film, MATAR A UN HOMBRE, a film based on a true story, won the award for the best film in the World Cinema category at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as countless awards at festivals throughout the world. That same year, the film was selected to represent Chile in the competitions for the Oscar Awards and the Goya Awards. In 2016 he directed AQUÍ NO HA PASADO NADA, a fictional thriller based on the real story that occurred on September 18, 2013, when Martin Larraín, son of former Chilean Senator Carlos Larraín, killed Hernán Canales, after running over him and running away, in an emblematic case for the power and the Chilean justice, the one that finally was without culprits and surrounded by a series of irregularities. The film earned Almendras the prize for Best Director at the Santiago International Film Festival.
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