Sebastian Lelio dies at 52: Oscar-winning 'A Fantastic Woman' director
Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio, who won the Oscar for A Fantastic Woman, has died at 52 at his home in Santiago. No cause has been announced.
Sebastián Lelio, the Chilean director whose film A Fantastic Woman won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2018, has died at 52. He died at his home in Las Condes, Santiago, according to Chilean media, and the news was confirmed on Friday, 6 November.
His partner, the actress Amalia Kassai, wrote on Instagram that he died for health reasons. No official cause has been released, and a prosecutor in eastern Santiago is looking into the death.
Why Sebastián Lelio mattered
Lelio made intimate films about women who refuse to be defined by others.
- Gloria (2013): a divorced woman in her late 50s looking for love in Santiago; it won best actress for Paulina García at the Berlin Film Festival, and Lelio remade it in English as Gloria Bell (2018) with Julianne Moore.
- A Fantastic Woman (2017): a transgender singer, played by Daniela Vega, fighting for the right to grieve her partner. It won Chile’s first Oscar for best foreign language film and made Vega the first openly trans performer to present at the Academy Awards.
- Disobedience (2017): his first English-language film, with Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams.
- The Wonder (2022): a Netflix period drama starring Florence Pugh.
His work helped push Chile’s debate on gender identity; the country passed a gender identity law in 2018, the year of the Oscar win.
His last project
Lelio was in the middle of shooting Poeta chileno (Chilean Poet), an adaptation of the novel by Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra. What happens to the unfinished film has not been announced.
For film lovers in Pakistan, where A Fantastic Woman and The Wonder found audiences on streaming, he was one of the clearest examples of how a small national cinema can reach the whole world with a personal story.
