11 October 2018 (2018-10-11) (London Film Festival)
10 September 2019 (2019-09-10)
Running time
96 minutes
Country
United Kingdom
Language
English
Evelyn is a 2018 documentary film directed by and starring Orlando von Einsiedel. The premise revolves around Orlando's own family dealing with the effects of a suicide that took place 13 years earlier by Orlando's brother Evelyn, by taking a series of long walks visiting landscapes Evelyn liked to walk when he was alive.[1][2]
Evelyn premiered at the 2018 London Film Festival. A year later, it was released Netflix on 10 September 2019.
For large parts of the film, the camerawork appears to require an operator walking backwards. In fact the cameraman, Franklin Dow, had created a special camera rig that sat on his back with a stabilising mechanism. A screen in front allowed him to watch what was happening as the family/cast members walked behind chatting.[5]
The musical score was mostly composed by Patrick Jonsson who had previously collaborated with von Einsiedel on Virunga and The White Helmets.[6] One song was contributed by Evelyn's sister Gwendolyn Einsiedel, a musician in her own right who remembers singing almost every day during the making of the film, though very little made it onto the final cut.[6]
Some reviewers have suggested that the film might be powerful enough to save the lives of those considering suicide. GQ pointed out that suicide is now the single biggest killer of young British men and suggested that Evelyn might help break the code of silence that tends to surround the subject.[12] The film's website provides support links to help services including The Samaritans and Calm and reproduces a poem from The Smoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans, best known as author of The Horse Whisperer.[13]
