Sebastián Lelio Watt (born 8 March 1974) is a Chilean director, screenwriter, editor and producer. He received critical acclaim for directing the films ''

Gloria Gloria may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music Christian liturgy and music * Gloria in excelsis Deo, the Greater Doxology, a hymn of praise * Gloria Patri, the Lesser Doxology, a short hymn of praise ** Gloria (Handel) ** Gloria (Jenkins) ...

'' (2013) and ''

A Fantastic Woman ''A Fantastic Woman'' ( es, Una mujer fantástica) is a 2017 drama film directed by Sebastián Lelio, written by Lelio and Gonzalo Maza, produced by Juan de Dios and Pablo Larraín and starring Daniela Vega and Francisco Reyes. It was selected ...

'' (2017), the latter of which won an

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...

Early life

Lelio was born in Mendoza, Argentina and moved to Viña del Mar, Chile at the age of 2 with his Chilean mother Valeria. He describes his early life as "nomadic": "Up to the age of 21, I was moving between different cities in Chile. I lived for a time in the United States, and also in Viña del Mar; my maternal family is from Viña...essentially I was never more than two or three years in the same city."Ernesto Garratt Viñes
"Sebastián Lelio: Hacer 'Gloria' fue entrar a un mundo desconocido"
diario.elmercurio.com, 1 February 2013. After some years in Viña, his mother moved to Concepción; later, they lived for one year in North America; from the age of 12 to 17, he lived in Cholguán (

Yungay, Chile Yungay is a Chilean town and commune in Diguillín Province, Ñuble Region. The commune spans an area of . Demographics According to data from the 2002 Census of Population and Housing, the Yungay commune had 16,814 inhabitants; of these, 11,469 ...

). Born with the surname Lelio, he changed his surname to that of his adoptive father Campos, but after having attained some fame with his first film, Lelio again took his biological father's name.

Career

After studying journalism for one year at Andrés Bello University, Lelio graduated from the Chilean Film School (''Escuela de Cine de Chile''). He has directed many short films and musical videos. In 2003, he released ''Cero'', a documentary based on unedited material from the 2001

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

in New York, co-directing with Carlos Fuentes. He directed two seasons of the successful documentary series ''Mi mundo privado'' (''My private life'') together with Fernando Lavanderos. The series followed the private lives of Chilean families from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and was nominated twice for the

Altazor Award The Altazor Award of the National Arts or simply Altazor, is a Chilean award which is awarded annually. The winners are chosen by the own creators and performers of the arts. They were established in 1958, but were not awarded until 1999. The a ...

s and also the

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

s. In 2005, his debut feature film ''La Sagrada Familia'' (''The Sacred Family'') premiered at the

San Sebastián International Film Festival The San Sebastián International Film Festival ( SSIFF; es, Festival Internacional de San Sebastián, eu, Donostia Zinemaldia) is an annual FIAPF A category film festival held in the Spanish city of Donostia-San Sebastián in September, in th ...

. Filmed over three days and edited over a period of almost one year, the film screened in over one hundred festivals and received a number of national and international awards. In 2009, his second feature film, ''Navidad'' (''Christmas''), premiered at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

. '' The Year of the Tiger'' (Spanish: ''El Año del Tigre''), Lelio's third feature film, premiered at the

Locarno International Film Festival The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, sh ...

in 2011. The film is set in the aftermath of the

2010 Chile earthquake The 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami ( es, Terremoto del 27F) occurred off the coast of central Chile on Saturday, 27 February at 03:34 local time (06:34 UTC), having a magnitude of 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale, with intense shaking la ...

and follows an escaped prisoner as he journeys through areas hit hardest by the quake. As with his first two films, ''The Year of the Tiger'' explores religious faith and how it influences people's behaviours. Lelio told an interviewer from ''The Clinic'' (magazine), "What I find fascinating is the interplay between the question of meaning that religion poses - a basic question - with the fact that in Chile, in Latin America, the Judeo-Christian version of reality is dominant. Everything is defined in relation to this view: whether you are for or against it, whether or not you escape it." Lelio's fourth feature film, ''

'', won the

Film in Progress award in 2012. The film premiered at the

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

in 2013, to excellent reviews, with lead actress

Paulina García Paulina García Alfonso (born 27 November 1960), better known as Pali García, is a Chilean actress, stage director, and playwright. García debuted on television with a small role in the telenovela '' Los títeres'' (1984), but she was soon ...

receiving the festival's prestigious

Best Actress Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organisations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actresses in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actress awar ...

award. In his fictional work, Lelio favours the use of

digital cinematography : Digital cinematography is the process of capturing (recording) a motion picture using digital image sensors rather than through film stock. As digital technology has improved in recent years, this practice has become dominant. Since the mid- ...

. Using improvisation, montage work, and scripts without dialogue, he created the short films ''Ciudad de maravillas'', ''Carga vital'', and ''2 minutos''. Lelio has been awarded the

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and a German DAAD grant to develop his new projects. As a scriptwriter, Lelio has written or co-written all of his films (including short films), except '' The Year of the Tiger''. In 2018, ''

'' won the

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology), ...

for

Best Foreign Film The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...

, making it the first Chilean film to win that honor. The Chilean Lelio's Oscar success was reported by the Argentinian press as the "Argentinian Director who won the Oscar". In an interview with '' Clarín'' in February 2018, he stated: "I was born in Argentina but technically I am not Argentinian, I am Chilean. My biological father is Argentinian but I was raised in Chile. I have a relationship with him and Argentina, place where I go often but in strict sense I am not Argentinian."

Filmography

Feature-length films

* ''La sagrada familia'', 2006 * ''

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...

'', 2009 * '' The Year of the Tiger'', 2011 * ''

'', 2013 * ''

'', 2017 * ''

Disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Henc ...

'', 2017 * ''

Gloria Bell ''Gloria Bell'' is a 2018 comedy-drama film written and directed by Sebastián Lelio; it is an English language remake of Lelio's 2013 film ''Gloria''. The film stars Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Michael Cera, Caren Pistorius, Brad Garrett, ...

'', 2018 *'' The Wonder'', 2022

Short films

* ''4'', 1995 * ''Cuatro'', 1996 * ''Smog'', with

Marialy Rivas Marialy Rivas is a Chilean screenwriter and film director, known for her 2012 film '' Young and Wild'', winner of the World Cinema Screenwriting Award in Sundance Film Festival. She grew up in Chile during a violent dictatorship under Augusto P ...

, 2000 * ''Fragmentos urbanos'', 2002 * ''Ciudad de maravillas'', 2002 * ''Carga vital'', 2003 * ''El efecto Kulechov'', 2010 * ''Algoritmo'', 2020

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lelio, Sebastian 1974 births Living people 20th-century Argentine writers 20th-century Chilean writers 20th-century Chilean male writers 21st-century Argentine writers 21st-century Argentine male writers 21st-century Chilean writers 21st-century Chilean male writers Argentine emigrants to Chile Argentine expatriates in Chile Argentine film directors Argentine film editors Argentine film producers Argentine screenwriters Chilean film directors Chilean film editors Chilean film producers Chilean people of Argentine descent Argentine people of Chilean descent Naturalized citizens of Chile Chilean screenwriters Male screenwriters Directors of Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winners People from Mendoza, Argentina Silver Bear for Best Screenplay winners