Orlando von Einsiedel (born in August 1980) is a British film director and producer. He directs mostly documentary films that investigate global social issues, and has filmed in various places around the world, including Africa, Asia, America and the Arctic. Von Einsiedel became known for his award winning film Virunga, produced with the cooperation of Virunga National Park director Prince de Merode.
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Early life
Von Einsiedel is the grandson of Wittgo von Einsiedel, a second cousin of Heinrich Graf von Einsiedel, and of Walburga von Oberndorff; both were members of the former German nobility. His father, Andreas Jean-Paul von Einsiedel, was a photographer specialising in architecture and interiors. Von Einsiedel grew up in Forest Gate, London, with his mother Harriet, a British music therapist. He attended Alleyn's, an independent school in East Dulwich, London.
University
Von Einsiedel studied social anthropology at the University of Manchester and got an MSc in anthropology and development at the London School of Economics.
Film career
Von Einsiedel began his filmmaking career making snowboard films before moving into documentaries. Many of von Einsiedel's documentaries have been screened at film festivals including the Sundance Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival.
Von Einsiedel directed Virunga (2014), which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature, and The White Helmets (2016), which won for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Both nominations were shared with producer Joanna Natasegara. His 2018 film, Evelyn, about his late brother, launched at the London Film Festival and won the BIFA for Best Documentary. In 2020, Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (if you're a girl), a film he was an executive producer on and which grew out of his earlier film Skateistan: To Live and Skate Kabul, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). In 2024 he released Los Niños Perdidos / The Lost Children. The film was nominated for a Platino Award and reached the number 2 spot on the Netflix global top ten most watched films list. In 2025 von Einsiedel released The Cycle Of Love which launched at the Telluride Film Festival.
In 2006, he co-founded Grain Media.
Snowboard career
Von Einsiedel spent several years as a professional snowboarder.