The Captive
(El Cautivo)
Alejandro Amenábar
Algeria, 1575: A young prisoner with a talent for storytelling longs to be free from his captivity, no matter the cost.
The protagonist is none other than Spain’s national poet Miguel de Cervantes. Before he was the author of the world-famous Don Quixote, he had lived as a slave for five years under governor Hassan of Algiers. Little is known about this period in his life. The Captive artfully uses historical gaps to its advantage and fills the myth with possibilities.
While Cervantes awaits the ransom money that will buy him freedom, an unequal relationship is formed between him and Hassan. This is a tale of honour, deception, and entanglements, as well as of desire and the cost of freedom. Just like in a novel, we are drawn into games of power struggles and intrigues.
With no one to trust, Cervantes can only hope that his stories will save him.
30 April 2026
20:30 h, Eldorado Filmtheater
More information
| Direction | Alejandro Amenábar |
| Country | Spain, Italy |
| Production year | 2025 |
| Duration | 134 min |
| Language | Spanish, Arabic, Italian |
| Language Version | OV with English Subs |
| Genre | Drama |
| Production | Fernando Bovaira, Alejandro Amenábar, Urko Errazquin, Simón de Santiago, Marina Marzotto, Mattia Oddone |
| Production company | MOD Producciones, Himenóptero, Misent Producciones, MOD Pictures, Propaganda Italia |
| Distribution | Film Constellation |
| Cast | Julio Peña Fernández, Alessandro Borghi |
| Director of Photography | Álex Catalán |
| Script | Alejandro Amenábar |
| Montage | Carolina Martínez Urbina |
| Sound | Aitor Berenguer, Gabriel Gutiérrez, Candela Palencia |
| Music | Alejandro Amenábar |
| Sound Design | Gabriel Gutiérrez |
TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL 2025
Presented by:
About the director
Alejandro Amenábar, born in 1972 in Chine, is a director, screenwriter, and composer. At the age of 23, he made a name for himself with the Thriller Thesis (1996), which won him, among other awards, the Goya Award for Best New Director.
In 2004, his drama film The Sea Inside won 14 Goyas and the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language film. Amenabár has written the screenplay and composed the score for all of his films.
Press reviews
"The production is exquisitely designed, with a rich and textured quality captured by cinematographer Alex Catalán. Its careful use of light and attentive direction bolster finely tuned performances by Peña Fernández and Borghi, taking audiences on a journey to a fraught place and time, offering a window into the mind of the resourceful author of the foundational masterpiece Don Quixote." (Diana Cadavid for TIFF)
"As both a story about the magic of telling stories and a morality play about national identity and religious persecution, it’s a handsomely made, compulsively watchable film." (Dan Bayer for Next Best Picture)
GERMAN PREMIERE
International Feature Film Program
