Una mujer fantástica (A fantastic woman in the english version) is a 2017 Chilean drama film directed by Sebastián Lelio and starring Luis Gnecco and Daniela Vega between others. Four years ago, Lelio shook up the official competition in Berlin with Gloria, a bracingly honest, ultimately empowering study of the rocky journey of a middle-aged divorcee, stumbling toward completeness with a gradual affirmation of her self-worth and independence. True to its title, the Chilean director’s extraordinary new film, A Fantastic Woman, is a superlative companion piece. Another work of searing empathy, it traces the emergence from devastating grief of a young transgender protagonist, treated like a criminal in the wake of her older partner’s abrupt death. Shocking and enraging, funny and surreal, rapturous and restorative, this is a film of startling intensity and sinuous mood shifts wrapped in a rock-solid coherence of vision. It won the Silver Bear in the main competition section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.
