Malik Bendjelloul suicide: Searching for Sugar Man director took own life, his brother confirms

Johar Bendjelloul says that his sibling was suffering from depression at the time of his death

Malik Bendjelloul took his own life, his brother has confirmed.

Johar Bendjelloul told a Swedish newspaper that the late 36-year-old director had recently been suffering from depression.

“I can confirm that it was suicide and that he had been depressed for a short period of time,” Bendjelloul told the Aftonbladet newspaper.

“Life is not always so easy... I don't know how to handle it.”

The Swedish-born director was found dead on Tuesday, although his cause of death was not known.

However, police said that they were not treating the incident as suspicious.

He was famous for his 2012 documentary Searching for Sugar Man, which won a BAFTA and Oscar in 2013. The film follows two South Africans as they successfully attempt to find Seventies folk singer, Rodriguez. The musician had disappeared into obscurity, despite having garnered huge fame in South Africa where his album, Cold Fact, became the soundtrack to the breakdown of the apartheid in the Seventies.

The documentary located the singer, who was living as a builder in Detroit and helped him to tour once again.

“Malik was a fantastic person,” Rodriguez told Swedish newspaper Expressen. “He was both unique and very friendly.”

The film’s co-producer, Simon Chinn, also paid tribute to the young film-maker.

“I saw him two weeks ago in London,” Chinn told Associated Press. “He was so full of life, hope and optimism and happiness, and looking forward to the future and future collaborations.

“We were talking about working together and talking about specific ideas, so the idea that he is no longer is just too hard to process.”

READ MORE: REVIEW: SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN
INTERVIEW: ELLEN JONES MEETS MALIK BENDJELLOUL
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