Facing up to my brother's suicide: How filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel tackled his family's tragedy

Orlando von Einsiedel’s first full-length documentary, Virunga, chronicled the battle to save Africa’s oldest national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from armed rebel militias and a predatory British oil company. It was nominated for an Oscar in 2015.

He followed this up with the short The White Helmets, which featured the Syrian volunteers who rescue civilians trapped in buildings destroyed by the Assad regime’s bombs. It won Britain’s only Oscar at the 2017 Academy Awards.

Aged 38, the soft-spoken, self-effacing south Londoner was suddenly in great demand. Lucrative offers poured in. But he turned them all down. He opted instead  to make what he describes as his hardest film yet,...