Sebastián Lelio, Director of Oscar-Winning A Fantastic Woman, Dies at 52

His Family Asked for Privacy After His Death in Santiago

Sebastián Lelio, the Chilean filmmaker whose drama A Fantastic Woman won an Academy Award and helped advance a national debate over gender recognition, has died at 52. His partner, Amalia Kassai, found him at his home in Santiago on Friday, November 6.

Lelio’s family said he died for health reasons and asked for privacy as they grieve. They gave no further medical details, and a specific cause of death has not been made public.

International audiences came to know Lelio through Gloria and A Fantastic Woman, two films that put women’s lives and choices at the center of the story. He went on to direct actors including Julianne Moore, Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, and Florence Pugh. His final completed film, The Wave, brought him back to a moment of protest in Chile, this time through a musical drama.

Gloria Brought Lelio’s Work to an International Audience

Lelio was born on March 8, 1974, in Mendoza, Argentina. His family moved to Viña del Mar, Chile, when he was two years old. Chile became his home and the country most closely associated with his filmmaking.

His international breakthrough came in 2013 with Gloria. The film follows a middle-aged woman looking for love while trying to preserve her independence. Its attention stays with Gloria as she works out what she wants from a relationship and what she wants to keep for herself.

Lelio later returned to the story with Gloria Bell, an English-language remake starring Julianne Moore. Taking on the same material again gave him a chance to follow the character in a different setting and with a different lead performer. The central question carried over from the earlier film. How does Gloria make room for love while holding on to the life she wants?

For viewers who first encountered Lelio through Moore’s performance, Gloria Bell offered a way into the kind of story that had brought him attention in 2013. In both versions, the woman at the center makes choices about her own future, even when what she wants is at odds with what other people expect of her.

A Fantastic Woman Won Chile’s Second Academy Award

Lelio’s biggest international success came with A Fantastic Woman. The film follows Marina, a transgender woman whose partner dies suddenly. As she deals with the loss, she finds herself having to defend her right to mourn him.

That struggle gives the story its stakes. Marina is grieving someone she loved, while other people’s treatment of her shapes how she can respond to his death. Lelio keeps the film close to her experience, showing what it costs her to face discrimination at the same time she is trying to cope with loss.

A Fantastic Woman won a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2018. It was only the second Academy Award in Chile’s history. For Lelio, the win brought his work to a larger international audience. In Chile, the conversation around the film was already reaching beyond its reception at festivals and awards ceremonies.

Marina’s Story Became Part of a Debate Over Gender Recognition

A Fantastic Woman helped spark a national discussion in Chile about the treatment and recognition of transgender people. The film gave that discussion a character and a situation audiences could follow closely. Marina had lost her partner and wanted the space to grieve him. The way people responded to her made questions about recognition and dignity part of that personal story.

The discussion around the film helped build momentum for a Chilean law allowing people to legally change their gender. Its role in that debate became a distinct part of the film’s legacy in Lelio’s home country. The Oscar recognized the work as cinema, while the public response in Chile carried its subject into a debate about what the law should allow.

Disobedience and The Wonder Continued His Focus on Women’s Lives

Lelio directed Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams in Disobedience, a love story that continued his interest in how expectations shape the choices women make. Desire was one of several themes he returned to across his films, alongside grief, independence, and the consequences of discrimination.

He also directed Florence Pugh in The Wonder, a drama released by Netflix. It was another project that introduced his work to viewers who might have first known him through one of his Chilean films or through Gloria Bell. Across those projects, the settings and casts changed, while Lelio kept returning to women whose decisions were shaped by the demands other people placed on them.

The difference between Gloria and A Fantastic Woman shows how varied those stories could be. Gloria is deciding what place a relationship should have in the life she has made for herself. Marina is trying to mourn a relationship after a sudden death. Each film follows a woman through a particular moment and lets her choices determine where the story goes.

His Final Completed Film Drew on Chile’s Feminist Protests

The Wave, Lelio’s final completed film, was inspired by the feminist protest movement that swept Chile in 2018. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2025. With a musical drama, Lelio took on a different form and drew from a moment when women’s demands had become part of public life across Chile.

That made The Wave a return to Chilean events after several projects with internationally known English-speaking casts. It also gave Lelio a way to work on a different scale. In Gloria, questions about independence played out in one woman’s personal life. The Wave drew on a collective movement, where the issues that mattered to individual women were voiced publicly through protest.

Sony Pictures Classics, which distributed A Fantastic Woman, paid tribute to Lelio after news of his death. The distributor remembered him as a singular filmmaker whose work kept evolving and surprising audiences. His final completed film reflected that willingness to change direction. Years after an intimate drama about Marina’s grief won Chile its second Oscar, he brought a musical inspired by the country’s feminist movement to Cannes.