Swedish filmmaker, Oscar winner in ’13
Malik Bendjelloul, a Swedish filmmaker who won the 2013 Academy Award for Best Documentary with his debut feature, Searching for Sugar Man, about a forgotten American balladeer who, unwittingly, had achieved fame halfway around the world, was found dead Tuesday in Stockholm. He was 36.
Bendjelloul’s brother, Johar Bendjelloul, confirmed to The Associated Press that his younger brother committed suicide Tuesday. He told the daily Aftonbladet that his brother had struggled with depression for a short period.
Police would not comment on the cause of death but said they suspected no foul play.
A largely inexperienced filmmaker when he started the project, Malik Bendjelloul edited Searching for Sugar Man in his Stockholm apartment and paid for most of it himself.
The film tells the story of Sixto Rodriguez, a singer, songwriter and guitarist from Detroit who recorded two blues-tinged folk-rock albums under the single name Rodriguez in the early 1970s and then vanished from the music scene, a casualty of poor publicity and meager sales.
For decades he supported himself and three daughters doing manual labor, unaware that his music — songs of protest and hardscrabble life rendered in a heartfelt tenor — had resonated in South Africa.
Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press.