Sebastián Lelio is a Chilean film director, screenwriter, film producer and editors
Background
Lelio’s father is Argentinean, but he moved to Viña del March, Chile, as a child with his Chilean mother Valeria. 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.
Education
After studying journalism for one year at Andrés Bello National University, Lelio graduated from the Chilean Film School (Escuela de Cine de Chile).
Career
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 March My maternal family is from Viña.. essentially I was never more than two or three years in the same city”.
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 in New York, co-directing with Carlos Fuentes. He also 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 Awards and also the Emmy Awards. In 2005, his debut feature film Louisiana Sagrada Familia (“The Sacred Family”) premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.
In 2009, his second feature film, Navidad, (“Christmas”) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
The Year of the Tiger (Spanish: “El Año del Tigre”), Lelio’s third feature film, premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2011. The film is set in the aftermath of the 2010 Chile earthquake 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.
Says Lelio in an interview with 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 lieutenant”
In his fictional work, Lelio favours the use of digital cinematography. Using scripts without dialogue, improvisation and montage work, he created the short films Ciudad de maravillas, Carga vital and 2 minutos.
Lelio has been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship and a German German Academic Exchange Service 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.