Sebastian Lelio, Director of 'A Fantastic Woman,' Dies at 52
Chilean director Sebastian Lelio died on November 6 at his home in Santiago, Chile. He was 52.
According to Chilean outlet Emol, Lelio's partner, actress Amalia Kassai, found him dead at around noon on November 6 at their home in Santiago's Las Condes district. Kassai then issued a family statement saying he had died following health complications, that the family was going through a time of profound grief, and asking for privacy. The exact cause of death has not been made public.
Lelio was born on March 8, 1974, in Mendoza, Argentina, and moved to Chile with his mother at the age of two, growing up in a succession of Chilean cities. His debut feature, The Sacred Family, premiered at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in 2005, and his second feature, Navidad (Christmas), premiered at Cannes in 2009.
In 2013 his film Gloria premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, where its star, Paulina Garcia, won the Silver Bear for Best Actress. In 2017, A Fantastic Woman won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay in Berlin and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards in 2018, becoming the first Chilean film to win that honor.
He then moved into English-language filmmaking: Disobedience, with Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams; Gloria Bell, his own remake of Gloria starring Julianne Moore; and The Wonder, starring Florence Pugh. His most recent film, The Wave, premiered at Cannes in 2025.
At the time of his death, Lelio was in Santiago filming Chilean Poet, an adaptation of the novel by Alejandro Zambra, while another film, Voyagers, starring Andrew Garfield and Daisy Edgar-Jones, was in pre-production. In her tribute, Kassai wrote: "I love you in this life and in all the lives to come." (Source: Emol, Chile)
Source: Emol (Chile
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：Sebastián Lelio 2017年在柏林国际电影节。照片：Maximilian Bühn 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Sebastian Lelio at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2017. Photo by Maximilian Bühn, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
