SANTIAGO, November 7, 2026 — Sebastián Lelio, the Chilean writer-director who brought a distinctive international voice to global cinema, died Friday at his home in Santiago. He was 52.
A Sudden Departure in Santiago
Lelio was found dead at his residence in the Las Condes district by his partner, actress Amalia Kassai, according to Chilean news outlet El Mercurio Online. Kassai contacted police following the discovery, and local media reported that he died due to health complications. In an Instagram post, Kassai confirmed the news without specifying a precise medical cause, describing the period as one of profound grief for the family.
“We are going through a time of profound grief, and his memory will remain with us forever,” Kassai wrote in the statement, which was also signed by the Campos Watt family. The family requested privacy and consideration during their time of mourning. Lelio’s death marks a significant loss for the Chilean film industry, which had just recently celebrated his latest work on the international stage.
Breaking Through with Gloria
Born in Argentina in 1974, Lelio moved to Viña del Mar, Chile, at the age of two. He studied at the Chilean Film School and began his career with a series of short films and a 9/11 documentary titled Cero. His first narrative feature, The Sacred Family, premiered at the San Sebastián Film Festival in 2005, followed by Navidad in 2009 and The Year of the Tiger in 2011. These early works established his reputation as a versatile filmmaker who worked as a writer, director, editor, and producer.
His major international breakthrough came with Gloria, released in 2013. The drama, starring Paulina García as a middle-aged divorcee, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, where García won an acting award. The film’s success opened doors for Lelio in English-language cinema, leading to an American remake titled Gloria Bell in 2018, which starred Julianne Moore and John Turturro. This transition demonstrated his ability to adapt intimate character studies across different cultural contexts while maintaining his signature focus on resilient female protagonists.
Historic Oscar Victory
Lelio’s most celebrated work, A Fantastic Woman, released in 2017, starred Daniela Vega as a transgender woman navigating love, loss, and societal judgment after the death of her partner. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2018, becoming the first Chilean film to achieve this distinction. It also won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and the Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film.
The cultural impact of the film extended beyond the awards circuit. In a 2018 interview, Lelio noted that a gender identity bill had been dormant in Chilean congress for seven years at the time of the film’s release. He observed that the film’s global visibility helped reactivate the discussion on trans identification in Chile, contributing to subsequent legislative reforms. The Hollywood Reporter’s chief film critic David Rooney described the film as a work of “startling intensity and sinuous mood shifts wrapped in a rock-solid coherence of vision,” highlighting its unique place in contemporary cinema.
Mastering the English-Language Stage
Following his Oscar win, Lelio continued to build a substantial body of work in English. His 2017 psychological thriller Disobedience, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, starred Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams in a story of forbidden love within an Orthodox community. The film received five nominations for British Independent Film Awards, underscoring its critical reception in the UK.
In 2022, he directed The Wonder, a psychological thriller set in 1862 Ireland that starred Florence Pugh as a nurse investigating a young girl’s refusal to eat. The film, which debuted at the Telluride Film Festival, earned a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding British Film of the Year. Lelio’s collaborations with high-profile actors like Weisz, McAdams, Moore, and Pugh solidified his status as a key figure in international arthouse cinema, known for his intimate direction and ability to elicit nuanced performances.
The Wave and Unfinished Work
Lelio’s most recent completed film, The Wave, is a musical drama that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2025. Inspired by the feminist protest movement that swept Chile in 2018, the film stars Daniela López as a college student and features elaborate singing and dancing numbers. It was released in theaters this summer via Wolfe Video. The project reflected his ongoing engagement with Chilean social issues and his interest in exploring collective movements through personal narratives.
At the time of his death, Lelio was actively working on his tenth feature, Chilean Poet, an adaptation of a novel by Alejandro Zambra. He was also developing Voyagers, a project starring Andrew Garfield as astronomer Carl Sagan and Daisy Edgar-Jones as Cosmos filmmaker Ann Druyan. These unfinished projects highlight the breadth of his creative ambitions and the loss of potential future works that were in active production or development stages.
A Legacy of Intimate Portraiture
Throughout his career, Lelio was recognized for his distinctive focus on female-centered narratives and intimate character studies. Critics and industry figures noted his ability to portray complex, resilient women navigating personal and societal challenges. Sony Pictures Classics, which distributed A Fantastic Woman, stated in a release Friday that Lelio was a “one-of-a-kind filmmaker whose work continued to evolve and surprise audiences around the world.” The distributor added that his “distinctive storytelling and singular vision will live on through a remarkable body of work that challenged conventions, touched hearts and left an indelible mark on international cinema.”
Lelio’s approach to filmmaking was collaborative and actor-focused. In a previous interview with The Guardian, he stated that he loved working with actors and needed to know they trusted him to explore and take risks on set. His work consistently balanced personal intimacy with broader social themes, creating films that resonated with both local and global audiences. The death of Sebastián Lelio leaves a void in the landscape of contemporary cinema, but his contributions to Chilean culture and international film remain a permanent part of the industry’s history.
Sources
- Sebastián Lelio, Chilean Filmmaker Behind ‘Disobedience,’ ‘The Wonder’ and the Oscar-Winning ‘A Fantastic Woman,’ Dies at 52
- Sebastián Lelio Dead: Oscar-Winning 'A Fantastic Woman' Filmmaker Was 52
- Sebastián Lelio, Chilean Director of Oscar-Winning ‘A Fantastic Woman,’ Dies at 52
- Sebastián Lelio, director of A Fantastic Woman and Gloria, dies aged 52
- Sebastián Lelio Remembered: History-Making, Oscar-Winning 'A Fantastic Woman' Director Dies Aged 52
Photo: Martin Kraft (CC BY-SA 3.0)
