Oscar-winning The Cycle of Love director Orlando von Einsiedel was at a Nobel Prize event in Sweden in 2017 when two young adults approached him with a book. “This is our parents’ story,” they told Einsiedel. “We know your work. Would you be interested in making a film about it?”
The director, who won an Academy Award that same year for the documentary short “The White Helmets,” took the book but didn’t immediately read it.
“From my experience, when somebody approaches you cold at an event, it doesn’t normally end up being the story of your dreams,” Einsiedel said. “But as soon as I started reading, I realized I’d been an idiot.”
The book, titled The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled From India to Sweden for Love, tells the story of PK Mahanandia, a poor Delhi street artist, and Anne-Charlotte von Schedvin (Lotta), a Swedish tourist. For 10 rupees, in 1975, PK sketched a portrait of Lotta. The 10-minute encounter proved fateful. PK and Lotta fell in love.
Einsiedel was captivated by the story and the “rich tapestry of universal themes” that it covered. So, in 2023, he began working on The Cycle of Love, a 98-minute documentary that chronicles PK and Lotta’s unlikely love story and the 6,000-mile journey through Iran and Afghanistan that PK embarked on in 1977 to reunite with Lotta two years after their first encounter.
Through old letters, pictures, and contemporary interviews with PK and Lotta, as well as reenactments with actors, the inspiring doc tells the epic true-life adventure of a man risking everything for love.
Einsiedel was in Denmark to screen The Cycle of Love at the 23rd edition of the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX). The film premiered at Telluride.
We asked Einsiedel about directing actors, Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ involvement in the doc, and why he thought CPH:DOX was a good fit for The Cycle of Love.
Orlando von Einsiedel on Making The Cycle of Love
MovieMaker: Your previous documentaries focus on hard topics, such as the rescue efforts of the Syrian Civil Defence in war-torn Aleppo (“The White Helmets”) and the dangerous fight to protect Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Virunga). The Cycle of Love is a feel-good doc. What was it like to shift gears and take on a story like this?
Orlando von Einsiedel: The short answer is that I might be getting old and soft. There are of course so many important and urgent stories in the world that deserve to be highlighted on screen. However I’ve been increasingly wanting to make a film that is unashamedly optimistic and brings feelings of joy and human connection — feelings which are often under celebrated but are so crucial to all of us.
MovieMaker: Was there any hesitation about making this doc since there weren’t any old videos capturing PK’s 6,000-mile cross-continental voyage?
Orlando von Einsiedel: Yes, there was. I was really excited to tell the story after meeting PK and Lotta, but there were lots of challenges. In particular, as you note, limited archive footage from an event that happened more than 50 years ago. Sadly, PK didn’t have a documentary crew trailing his journey in the 1970s. However, as a filmmaker and storyteller, I loved how this pushed me and forced me to think in fresh ways.
MovieMaker: What was it like working with actors to make this documentary?
Orlando von Einsiedel: We had a brilliant theater actor, Chirag Lobo, improvising a younger version of PK, and we embarked on a journey following parts of PK’s original cycle route across Asia and Europe, meeting people along the way as he once did. We would street cast people on the day of filming, tell them that we were recreating PK’s journey 50 years later, and ask them if they would be open to a conversation with our actor.
The final form this all takes in the film stands on the shoulders of directors like Chloe Zhao, The Ross Brothers, Walter Salles, Michael Winterbottom, and Jonas Poher Rasmussen, and many others who have been experimenting and pushing documentary storytelling form and techniques.
MovieMaker: Did you ever consider making a narrative about this love story?
Orlando von Einsiedel: Yes, at the very start of the project, when I couldn’t figure out how to do it in documentary form. PK and Lotta’s story is so dramatic that it’s almost unbelievable, and it also definitely has the kind of story arc that narrative films lean towards. However, since PK and Lotta are both very much alive, and so warm and charismatic, to me it felt wrong to not work out how to make this as a doc at this moment in time.
MovieMaker: How did Priyanka Chopra Jonas become an executive producer on this project?
Orlando von Einsiedel: One of our EPs showed Priyanka an early cut of the film, and she responded enthusiastically. She had known about PK’s story already, and she loved the way we brought it to life for a film audience. Like us, she felt PK’s story transcends borders and nationalities.
MovieMaker: Why was CPH:DOX a good fit for this film?
Orlando von Einsiedel: To be honest, I was a bit nervous about how European audiences would receive the film. We have had some incredible responses at American festivals such as Telluride, The Hamptons, and Middleburg, but I didn’t know how it would translate on this side of the world. Thankfully, we needn’t have worried. CPH:DOX is such a brilliant festival, and audiences engaged with the film just as strongly as they had across the pond.
The Cycle of Love is seeking U.S. distribution.
You can read more of our film festival coverage here.
Main image: The Cycle of Love