Sebastián Lelio, the gifted Chilean filmmaker who received the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for his 2017 feature, "Una mujer fantástica (A Fantastic Woman)", has sadly passed away at the age of fifty-two. No clear details on the cause of death have been revealed to date beyond he was found nonresponsive at his home in Las Condes, Chile on November 6th.
Born in Mendoza, Argentina, Lelio moved to Viña del Mar, Chile at the age of two with his Chilean mother where he would continuously move every few years around the country throughout his childhood. While he was initially interested studying journalism, Lelio would attend and graduate from Escuela de Cine de Chile where he would make several short films. He went on to direct three feature films with "Navidad (Christmas)" from 2009 would become his first to be accepted in the Cannes Film Festival as part of the Directors' Fortnight section.
Lelio's first major breakthrough was "Gloria", a 2013 drama that starred Paulina García as a fifty-eight-year-old woman who starts dating again ten years after getting divorced. After premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival, Garcia won the Silver Bear for Best Actress and the film went on to be selected as the Chilean entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards although it was not voted on as a nominee.
Then four years later came "A Fantastic Woman" which premiered at Berlinale, winning the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay and the Teddy Award for Best LGBTQ feature. The film about a young Chilean trans woman (played by Daniela Vega) struggling over the loss of her older lover would receive several more international prizes, leading to the Academy Award win.
This attracted the attention of Hollywood and Lelio made his English-language debut with "Disobedience", an indie drama with Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams involving a woman who returns to her strict Orthodox Jewish community for her estranged father's funeral. He would follow this with the 2018 English-language remake of his film, "Gloria Bell" with Julianne Moore in the title role and "The Wonder", a psychological period drama based on the novel by Emma Donoghue and starring Florence Pugh as a nurse assigned to prove if a young girl of faith has survived for months without eating. Lelio's final film, "The Wave" was released last year and found the filmmaker returning to his home country for this musical drama loosely based on the 2018 Chilean feminist protests.
While Lelio was only able to complete nine films during his all-too-brief career, he managed to leave behind an impressive body of work that dealt with the human condition in a way that was artful, compassionate and beautifully expressive. He was a cinematic artist of great distinction who will truly be missed.
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