“I can confirm that it was suicide and that he had been depressed for a short period of time,” his brother Johar told a Swedish paper.
The 36-year old’s body was discovered on Tuesday in Stockholm.
The subject of his 2013 Best Documentary Academy Award, Sixto Rodriguez, said: "Malik was a fantastic person. He was both unique and very friendly."
Searching For Sugarman was very much a labour of love, with Bendjelloul almost having to abandon it halfway through when he ran out of money and shooting some of the footage on his iPhone. It’s testament to a huge talent that’s been taken from us all too early.