Sebastián Lelio, the Chilean filmmaker whose drama A Fantastic Woman won the Academy Award for best international feature, has died at 52. His family announced the news on Friday, November 6, 2026, citing health reasons without giving a specific cause.
What We Know
The announcement came from Lelio’s partner, Amalia Kassai, in an Instagram post written on behalf of the family. In it, the family said they were sharing “with great sadness” the death of the filmmaker for health reasons, described him as a beautiful person who had contributed to Chilean culture, and asked for privacy as they grieve.
No further details about the circumstances have been released. Chile’s Ministry of Cultures paid tribute to the director, saying his work had marked a milestone for the country’s cinema.
Lelio was still busy behind the camera when he died. According to the Associated Press and Chilean outlet BioBioChile, he had started filming Poeta Chileno (The Chilean Poet), an adaptation of Alejandro Zambra’s novel, in September. TheWrap also reported that he had been attached to Voyagers, a project about astronomer Carl Sagan and writer Ann Druyan, with Andrew Garfield and Daisy Edgar-Jones set to star. The future of both productions has not been addressed.
Background
Born on March 8, 1974, in Mendoza, Argentina, Lelio moved to Chile as a child with his mother and later studied at the Escuela de Cine de Chile. He made his feature debut with La sagrada familia (The Sacred Family) in 2005, followed by Navidad (2009) and El año del tigre (2011).
His international breakthrough came with Gloria (2013), a portrait of a divorced woman in her late fifties looking for love in Santiago. Its star, Paulina García, won the Silver Bear for best actress at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Four years later, A Fantastic Woman premiered in Berlin. The film followed a young trans woman, played by Daniela Vega, dealing with grief and prejudice after the sudden death of her partner. It went on to win the Oscar for best foreign language film at the 90th Academy Awards in March 2018, the first Chilean feature ever to take the prize.
Hollywood soon came calling. Lelio directed Disobedience (2017), starring Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams, and then remade his own film as Gloria Bell (2018) with Julianne Moore in the title role. In 2022 he made The Wonder for Netflix, a period mystery led by Florence Pugh.
He then returned home for La ola (The Wave, 2025), an ambitious musical inspired by the feminist student protests that swept Chile in 2018. It proved to be one of the last films released in his lifetime.
Across those projects, Lelio built a reputation for centering women who refuse to shrink themselves, whether a middle-aged divorcée on the dance floor, a woman fighting for the right to mourn, or a nurse questioning a supposed miracle. Few Latin American directors of his generation moved as easily between national cinema and English-language studio work.
Reactions
Beyond his family’s statement, Chile’s Ministry of Cultures was among the first institutions to respond publicly, honoring the place his films hold in the country’s cultural history. Coverage of his death spread quickly across Variety, IndieWire, TheWrap and the AP, a sign of how far his work had travelled.
What’s Next
The family has asked for privacy and has not announced funeral plans. Producers of Poeta Chileno have not said whether the partly shot film will be completed. Any updates are expected to come from the family or the production companies involved.