Sebastián Lelio, Chilean Director of Oscar-Winning ‘A Fantastic Woman,’ Dead at 52

Lelio, who was found dead at his home in Santiago amid a health issue, also directed "Gloria" star Paulina García to a Silver Bear win in 2013 before remaking the film as "Gloria Bell" with Julianne Moore in 2018.

Sebastián Lelio, the humanistic Chilean filmmaker whose trans drama “A Fantastic Woman” won the Best International Feature Film Oscar in 2018, has died at age 52.

The Chilean publication Emol first revealed the news that he was found dead in his home in Santiago on Friday, November 6, amid an undisclosed health issue. His body was discovered by his partner, the actress/director Amalia Kassai, who starred in his final film, the protest musical “The Wave” from Cannes 2025. Kassai also posted a statement in Spanish on her Instagram account.

“It’s with much sadness that we share the passing due to health problems of the Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio,” her statement read, as translated independently by IndieWire. “We are going through a moment of much pain, and his memory will always remain with us. He was a beautiful person and shared the Chilean culture in huge moments in history. The family would like to ask for privacy and consideration in these difficult moments.”

Lelio was reportedly mid-production on the feature “Chilean Poet,” adapted from Alejandro Zambra’s Viking-published 2022 novel. Along with “A Fantastic Woman,” he also directed the Hasidic lesbian romance “Disobedience” in the same year, 2017; it starred Rachel McAdams and Rachel Weisz, and helped bring the filmmaker to international prominence. In 2013, he directed Paulina García to a Berlinale Silver Bear Best Actress win with “Gloria,” a late-in-life romantic comedy about a 58-year-old divorcee starting over again. He remade his own film in 2018 in English as “Gloria Bell,” released by A24 and starring Julianne Moore in the role García originated, opposite John Turturro.

Lelio regularly collaborated with the Chilean brothers Pablo Larraín and Juan de Dios Larraín, who served as producers on nearly all of his films. They were also collaborating with Lelio on his ongoing, now-final feature. Born in Argentina, he emigrated to Chile at age two with his mother and later graduated from Chilean Film School, after which he launched his career with short films and music videos. His debut narrative feature, “The Sacred Family,” premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in Spain before his follow-up, “Navidad,” premiered at Cannes in 2009. The post-Chilean-earthquake drama “The Year of the Tiger,” starring beloved Chilean actor Luis Dubó, debuted at Locarno in 2011.

His fourth feature, “Gloria,” shot digitally and with a script and dialogue developed in part with his actors, including García, received U.S. distribution from Roadside Attractions and was widely regarded as one of the best films of 2013.

Lelio directed the first Best International Feature Oscar entry to win the Academy Award with 2017’s Golden Bear-nominated “A Fantastic Woman,” an exuberantly styled drama that put trans actress Daniela Vega on the international map. As Vega consulted on the script, it’s widely seen as a groundbreaker of trans portrayals onscreen in the 21st century. And it helped reform the perception and attitudes toward transness in Lelio and Vega’s home of Chile — and inevitably, within the Academy.

Lelio’s favorite films on the 2022 Sight & Sound poll included “La Dolce Vita,” “Playtime,” “The 400 Blows,” and “Singin’ in the Rain,” and you can feel their impact across his often irreverent, at times burstingly colorful, playful body of work.

His 2017 TIFF premiere “Disobedience” received U.S. distribution from Bleecker Street, and told the story of a forbidden, transgressive romance between two Orthodox Jewish women (McAdams and Weisz) in North London. The tender, taboo drama performed well in North America, grossing nearly $3.5 million domestic during a spring-through-summer 2018 run.

Lelio, that year, deftly remade “Gloria” as “Gloria Bell” with Julianne Moore as the free-spirited divorcee being wooed by John Turturro, and weighing choices in her next chapter living as a yoga instructor in Los Angeles. Returning to filming after the pandemic, Lelio broadened his collaborative scope to adapt “Room” author Emma Donoghue’s “The Wonder,” with Donoghue and Alice Birch co-writing the script with him. Florence Pugh starred as a British nurse sent to Ireland to observe a miraculous “fasting girl,” in a film that played Telluride and streamed on Netflix to strong reviews.

His last film, “The Wave,” took a minute to get off the ground after playing out of competition in Cannes 2025. The story of an introverted music student whose passion for protest is awakened amid a growing feminist movement on campus, “The Wave” received a small release from Wolfe Video earlier this year and received positive response throughout its festival run.

The status of Lelio’s final film isn’t known right now, but we can imagine that Lelio’s sensitive approach to character — and unstable identities finding their footing, their purest expression — will carry into the new work. The Larraín brothers were also producing the film, with Lelio’s regular cinematographer Benjamín Echazarreta on board as DP.