Chilean director Sebastián Lelio dies at 52
Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio has died at the age of 52, Variety reported on 6 November 2026. He directed A Fantastic Woman, the Chilean drama that won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2018.
His partner, actress Amalia Kassai, announced the death on Instagram. She said he died of health reasons. According to Variety, Lelio was found at his home in the Las Condes district of Santiago, and Kassai then called the police. Chilean media also reported that his family has issued a statement. T13 carried the family's message on the day of the announcement.
Lelio was born in Argentina and moved to Chile when he was two years old. He built a career on stories about ordinary people facing difficult choices. His films include La Sagrada Familia, Navidad, The Year of the Tiger and The Wonder. Chilean culture officials gave him the Pedro Sienna Award in 2013 for Gloria, the film that later became an English-language remake, Gloria Bell, starring Julianne Moore and John Turturro.
A Fantastic Woman starred Daniela Vega as a transgender woman who fights her lover's family after he dies. The film's win in Berlin came first. It took the Teddy Award for best feature film at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2017, a prize for films with LGBTQ+ themes. The Oscar followed the next year, and it made Chile's cinema visible to Academy voters in a way few films from the country had managed before.
His most recent film was The Wave, a musical inspired by the feminist protests that swept Chile. Variety reported that he had not finished filming Poeta chileno at the time of his death. Publimetro also reported the unfinished project.
Lelio's death leaves his partner, his family and Chilean film colleagues to mark the loss. Tributes are expected from the Chilean film community in the coming days.
