
Age: 57
male
Wesley Wales Anderson (born May 1, 1969) is an American filmmaker. His films are known for their symmetry, eccentricity and distinctive visual and narrative styles, and he is cited by some critics as a modern-day example of the auteur. Three of his films, The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) appeared in BBC Culture's 2016 poll of the greatest films since 2000. Anderson was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), Moonrise Kingdom (2012) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), as well as the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for the stop-motion films Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) and Isle of Dogs (2018). With The Grand Budapest Hotel, he received his first Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Picture, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay. He currently runs the production company American Empirical Pictures, which he founded in 1998. He won the Silver Bear for Best Director for Isle of Dogs in 2018.

The Alchemist follows the journey of an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago. Believing a recurring dream to be prophetic, he asks a Romani fortune-teller in a nearby town about its meaning. The woman interprets the dream as a prophecy telling the boy that he will discover a treasure at the Egyptian pyramids. Early into his journey, he meets an old king named Melchizedek or the king of Salem, who tells him to sell his sheep so as to travel to Egypt and introduces the idea of a Personal Legend. Your Personal Legend "is what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is." He adds that "when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." Along the way, the boy meets an Englishman who has come in search of an Alchemist and continues his travels with him. When they reach an oasis, Santiago meets and falls in love with an Arabian girl named Fatima, whom he asks to marry him. She promises to do so only after he completes his journey. He is frustrated by this, but later learns that true love will not stop nor must one sacrifice to it one's personal destiny, since to do so robs it of truth. The boy then encounters a wise alchemist who also teaches him to realize his true self.

