The world of film is mourning Sebastián Lelio, the Chilean director whose groundbreaking film A Fantastic Woman won an Oscar and even helped to change the law in his country.
According to Chilean news outlet El Mercurio Online, Lelio was found dead at his home in Santiago by his partner, Amalia Kassai, on Friday, November 6, aged 52.
His family has said only that he died due to health reasons, while asking for privacy as they grieve. At the time of writing, no cause of death has been made public.
Lelio was born on March 8, 1974, in Mendoza, Argentina. His family moved to Viña del Mar in Chile when he was two years old, and Chile became his home.
He first won international attention with Gloria in 2013, a film about a middle-aged woman searching for love and independence. It was such a success that he later remade it in English as Gloria Bell, starring Julianne Moore.
But his biggest triumph came with A Fantastic Woman. The film tells the story of Marina, a transgender woman who has to fight for the right to mourn her partner after his sudden death. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2018, becoming only the second Oscar in Chile’s history. It also won a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.
The film’s impact went far beyond cinema. It sparked a national debate in Chile and helped pave the way for a law allowing people to legally change their gender.
Lelio went on to work with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. He directed Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams in the love story Disobedience, and Florence Pugh in the Netflix drama The Wonder. According to Latin Times, his films often centered on women dealing with grief, desire, discrimination and the expectations placed on their lives.
His final completed film was The Wave, a musical drama inspired by the feminist protest movement that swept Chile in 2018. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year.
Tributes have poured in since the news broke. Sony Pictures Classics, which distributed A Fantastic Woman, described him as a one-of-a-kind filmmaker whose work continued to evolve and surprise audiences around the world.
Rest in peace, Sebastián. Thank you for the stories that changed lives.
Read more:
