Daily Inspiration Quote by Alejandro Amenabar

Amenabar’s take on the Oscar has the quiet sting of someone who’s stood close enough to the machine to see its gears. He grants the statuette its mythic status - “the ultimate award for a filmmaker” - because denying that would sound either naive or performative. The first move is emotional honesty: yes, it feels great. The second move is self-preservation: keep “distance,” don’t “get obsessed.” That pivot is where the real intent lives.

He’s naming the strange double bind of prestige culture. Awards are positioned as the scoreboard of “quality,” but the chase can warp the very work they claim to honor. “Distance” functions like a creative quarantine: a way to prevent external validation from becoming an internal compass. The subtext is that the industry trains artists to anticipate the jury, to reverse-engineer their own sincerity into something legible to voters, campaigns, and narratives. Obsession doesn’t just disappoint you when you lose; it edits you while you’re still writing.

Amenabar’s career context sharpens the point. He’s one of the rare directors who has moved between Spanish and international cinema, genre and drama, commercial success and auteur ambition. That kind of mobility puts you in constant contact with gatekeepers and their incentives: what “counts” as serious, what travels, what wins. His advice isn’t anti-award so much as anti-forecast. Don’t create with the trophy in the room. Make the film first, let the ceremony arrive later, if it arrives at all.