Earlier this year, Jonny Benjamin, in partnership with Rethink Mental Illness, started a campaign to find ‘Mike’, the stranger who had stopped him from taking his own life six years ago. That journey has now been made into a 45-minute documentary.

Finding Mike was released yesterday and has so far had more than 1,500 views on YouTube. It includes footage from media appearances Jonny made to promote the campaign, some of the touching conversations he had with members of the public on Waterloo Bridge, and the practical process of following up the potential leads.

'Mike' turned out to be called Neil. Towards the end of the documentary, after the reunion with Neil, Jonny says: “It feels like that chapter is almost closed now – those six years ago and everything that I went through, it’s a complete contrast to the feelings that I had that day.”

At the premier of the film Mark Winstanley, acting chief executive of Rethink, said: “Tonight is a celebration of recovery. It is a pivotal moment in a massive team effort to raise awareness of mental illness through one man’s story. Everyone who has been involved should be very proud.”

Rethink is using the documentary to raise awareness and is asking people to text ‘Mike’ to 703000 to donate £3.  

A trailer for the film is embedded below, and the full film is here.