Sebastián Lelio death at age 52, Digi Mart USA News (Santiago de Chile, Chile): Filmmaker Sebastián Lelio, who made Chilean cinema world-famous and won an Oscar, has died at the age of 52 in his homeland of Chile. The news was reported by the German publisher Bild.
His partner, German-Chilean actress Amalia Kassai (40), announced the death on Instagram with the words “with great sorrow.” She cited only “health reasons” as the cause of death.
According to Chilean media reports, Lelio was found lifeless in his house in Las Condes, in the Santiago metropolitan area. Chile’s Minister of Culture, Francisco Undurraga, praised Lelio’s life’s work and said his films had brought Chile “to the top of the audiovisual world.” The actors’ union “Chile Actores” called his death “an enormous loss” for the country’s culture and film industry.
Lelio’s greatest international success was A Fantastic Woman (original title: Una mujer fantástica), a drama about a transgender woman. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2018 and remains the only Chilean film to win that award.
A year earlier, it had won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film stars Daniela Vega as Marina, a young transgender woman who, after the sudden death of her older partner, must cope with her grief while standing up to prejudice and rejection.
Lelio’s ties to Berlin went beyond the festival. In 2012 he came to the city as a guest of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) artist program for an initial six months.
There he worked on the editing of his film Gloria, which premiered in competition at the Berlinale in 2013 and became a major success. Paulina García won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for the role.
Lelio later directed a Hollywood remake starring Julianne Moore.
The short stay in Berlin eventually extended to several years. Lelio lived in the capital and even opened the South American restaurant “Gloria” in Kreuzberg.
In 2017 he told the German Press Agency that what they had experienced with Gloria was “a milestone in our lives,” adding that the city had unexpectedly been very important. He said Berlin had “interfered in the film” during the creation of A Fantastic Woman.
