‘When you tell people the story, it’s almost too good to be true’: the incredible journey behind The Cycle of Love — SkimNews
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- Pradyumna Kumar Mahanandia, known as PK, cycled 6,000 miles through India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey to reach Lotta in Borås, Sweden in May 1977 after sketching her portrait in New Delhi in December 1975 — the journey took 123 days and he originally thought he was cycling to Switzerland.
- Orlando von Einsiedel directed the Netflix documentary after PK and Lotta's grownup children Emilie and Karl handed him a book by Swedish journalist Per J Andersson; he changed his mind mid-air when reading it on a flight out of London.
- The film dramatizes PK's ride with British-based Indian actor Chirag Lobo as PK and Mina Dale as Lotta, while every other role was street-cast on the morning of filming with no script — a method von Einsiedel piloted in Lewisham town centre with a friend on a bike before committing to the India shoot.
- PK was born into a dalit family and experienced periods of homelessness even after winning a fine art scholarship to Delhi; he has said that being touched and hugged by strangers on the journey was the first time he began to believe in himself and learn self-love.
- PK described being met with hospitality across Afghanistan and Iran, but encountered hostile and overtly racist German border officers the moment he reached Europe — his first experience of racism on the entire 6,000-mile ride.
- Von Einsiedel's prior work includes the Oscar-winning documentary short White Helmets about Syrian rescue volunteers and the 2015 Oscar-nominated feature Virunga about Congo's mountain gorillas; "The Cycle of Love" is, by his own account, by far the sunniest film he has made.
Why it matters: PK's 6,000-mile journey reframes the love story as a portrait of cross-continental hospitality abruptly broken by racism at the German border, and von Einsiedel's street-cast, no-script production method — first tested in Lewisham — delivered the Netflix film entirely without professional actors beyond the two named leads.
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