Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio, director of A Fantastic Woman, died in Santiago on Friday, November 6, 2026, aged 52. The film became the first Chilean movie to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, marking a milestone for Chilean cinema.

The film that made history

Released in 2017, A Fantastic Woman stars Daniela Vega as a transgender woman navigating life after the death of her older boyfriend. It won the Oscar in 2018, placing a Chilean film at the top of a category the country had not won before.

Lelio also connected the film’s impact to a debate in Chile. In a 2018 interview, he said a gender-identity bill had been dormant in Congress for seven years when the film came out. He said its release, and the year it became known internationally, helped reactivate discussion. That was Lelio’s account of the film’s influence; the available information does not establish what followed for the bill.

From Argentina to an international breakthrough

Lelio was born in Mendoza, Argentina, and moved to Chile with his mother when he was two. He studied journalism for a year before attending film school. His feature debut, The Sacred Family, came out in 2005.

His 2013 film Gloria brought him wider international attention. It follows a woman in her late 50s who begins dating again; its star, Paulina García, won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival. Lelio later remade the story in English as Gloria Bell, starring Julianne Moore and John Turturro.

A career across languages and genres

Disobedience, Lelio’s English-language debut, starred Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams in a story of love between women. He went on to direct The Wonder, a 2022 adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel starring Florence Pugh, and The Wave, a musical protest drama inspired by feminist mobilizations in Chile in 2018. The Wave premiered at Cannes in 2025 and was his most recent completed film.

Lelio’s partner, Amalia Kassai, announced his death on social media. Her statement cited health reasons but did not specify the cause. Chilean media reported that he was found at his home in Las Condes, a district of Santiago; the exact circumstances of his death have not been specified.

The Independent reported that Lelio had begun filming Chilean Poet, an adaptation of a book by Alejandro Zambra, in September. What will happen to the project is not known.