I was so moved by The Cycle of Love, the luminous new documentary from Academy Award-winning filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel, director of the Oscar-winning The White Helmets, the Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated Virunga, and the BIFA-winning Evelyn. In this vHopeful Conversation, I speak with Orlando about his extraordinary new film, which follows P. K. Mahanandia, a young Dalit street artist who, in 1977, bicycled 6,000 miles from India to Sweden to reunite with Lotta von Schedvin, the woman he loved. We discuss the film’s singular blend of documentary encounters and beautifully staged recreations; the kindness of strangers that sustained P. K.’s journey; and its larger meditation on caste, prejudice, emotional vulnerability, and the radical possibility of building connection across every kind of boundary. Transcript lightly edited. Podcast available on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen on this Substack or Ted’s Hope for Film Vanessa Hope: I’m extremely excited to be joined by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel, whose urgent, deeply human body of work includes the Oscar-winning The White Helmets, the Academy Award-nominated Virunga, and films such as Evelyn, The Lost Children, and Heart of Invictus. In his beautiful, beautiful new documentary, The Cycle of Love—that is so, so moving—Orlando tells the astonishing true story of P. K. Mahanandia. Did I say that right? Orlando von Einsiedel: Yeah, perfect. Vanessa Hope: A young Dalit street artist from Delhi who, in 1977—one of the coolest decades, in my personal opinion—set out on a secondhand bicycle with a handful of paintbrushes. He rode 6,000 miles across continents, all the way to Sweden, in search of Lotta von Schedvin, the woman he loved. Through intimate conversations with P. K. and Lotta, and breathtakingly realized recreations—they really are; you could easily slip into fiction film whenever you want—the film becomes not only an epic romance, but a very moving meditation on caste, class, art, courage, and the radical self-belief required to imagine a life beyond the limits the world has placed on you. Something all of us understand. Thank you so much for being here, Orlando. Orlando von Einsiedel: Thank you, Vanessa. It’s wonderful to be here to talk to you. Vanessa: So, you’ve made this truly extraordinary love story. Actually, side note: I have to imagine maybe this has to do with you falling in love and your little kids who might pop into our screen here. But I also deeply experienced it as a story of worthiness. P. K. begins as a young Dalit artist from an extremely poor family who has been told where he belongs and what the limits are on his life. As a director, how did you understand the relationship between his decision to pursue his love, Lotta, and his belief that he was entitled to a life larger than the caste system had prescribed for him? Orlando: Thank you for such a wonderful introduction. When P. K. was born, in the ’50s, in the far east of India, his parents commissioned an astrologer to give him an astrological reading. In this reading, P. K. was told—his parents were told—this child one day will meet a woman from a faraway land. She’ll be musical, her star sign will be Taurus, and she’ll own a jungle. He sort of kept that belief really close to his heart. And as you said, Vanessa, he had a very difficult upbringing. He’s from the Dalit community, which sits at the bottom of India’s caste hierarchy. His life was very difficult. He had to sit outside at school. He wasn’t allowed to touch other children. The trauma was very profound for P. K. But he always had this idea that something else was destined for him. One day, he becomes a street artist in Delhi, thinking this is a way to escape the caste system. And a Swedish backpacker sits down in front of him. He feels this connection with her, and he’s like, “This is very strange. I’m feeling something.” I mean, he draws people all day long, so it’s not unusual to have a foreigner sit down in front of him. He says, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” And she’s like, “Sure, okay.” And he says, “Are you a Taurus?” She says, “Yes, but how do you know?” Then he says, “Are you musical?” And she says, “Yes, I play the flute and the recorder. But how do you know?” He goes, “Okay, one more question.” His mind is exploding at this point. He says, “Do you own a jungle?” Of course, she looks at him and says, “No, I’m from Sweden. We don’t have jungles in Sweden.” He looks down and is very upset. But then she says, “My family owns a forest.” And P. K. says, “My God, it’s destiny. We’re going to be together. This is written in the stars.” As you mentioned, Lotta eventually goes back to Sweden, and P. K. has to make this radical decision that, if he’s going to be with the woman from the prophecy, he has to somehow travel across the world. He can’t afford a plane ticket, even if he sells everything he owns, but he can afford a secondhand woman’s bicycle. And so he sets off. I say all of that because we might, in our lives, not all have prophecies written for ourselves. But we all have hopes and dreams, and we all have ambitions. I think one thing P. K.’s story really speaks to is that, if you want to achieve those things, you have to take a risk. You have to do something radical to change your life circumstances. We might not be able to cycle 6,000 miles for that, but we can all do something to aim for the dreams that we want to achieve. Vanessa: And did P. K. and Lotta find you, or did you find them and this unbelievable story? It’s so strange: as you just described their meeting, you gave me chills again because you put me right back into the scene. You recreate them with these actors. It’s so powerful. It’s so beautifully done. Was there something in your own life story that made you feel compelled to tell this story? Orlando: I think, Vanessa, I’ve been looking for a long time to make something that’s unashamedly positive and optimistic. I’ve made a lot of films. I like to think the films I work on are all about—there’s a thread that unites them—they’re all about humble heroism in some form. They’re about what I think is the best of humanity. So there is this thread, but they are often stories in very difficult parts of the world where very difficult circumstances are playing out. I’ve just felt a real urge to try to tell something positive that celebrates human connection. What happened in this case is I was giving a speech in Sweden, and two young people approached me at the end of the speech. They handed me a book and said, “This is our parents’ story. Would you have a read? If you’re interested, let’s speak. We’re interested in a film.” Sadly, I’m not Steven Spielberg. If people approach me out of the blue and say, “I’ve got a great story to tell you,” it doesn’t normally end up being a great story. So I took the book. I think I was polite, and I put it away. But a few weeks later, I was going on holiday and I saw the book. I thought, “I’ll have a look.” I started reading it and immediately thought, “You idiot. This story is mind-blowing.” I read it very quickly, got back in touch, and luckily—I was very lucky—I got invited to Sweden to meet P. K. and Lotta. They are, if you’ve seen the film, you’ll agree with me, I think, the most generous and warm and open-hearted human beings. Vanessa: They are! I met them at a film festival (Middleburg). It’s great that they’re traveling with you, and the film. So great. Orlando: I kind of fell in love with them. These films take so long to make; you want to be surrounded by people who make you feel good about the world and humanity. I think we all had a shared vision for how this film could be realized, the thematic ideas that could be realized in the documentary. The challenge—there were so many challenges—but the big challenge was that P. K. didn’t have a documentary crew following him in 1977 when he cycled across the world. That normally is what stops a documentary in its tracks. It was really scary, how to solve that, because at this point I was totally all in. Vanessa: I’m just thinking their children approached you and they did kind of want you to be Spielberg—and you did kind of achieve it. Because I really feel fully there in the scenes where you’re directing actors. Phenomenal. Orlando: So, okay, how we got there, Vanessa, is I started to look at my previous work, trying to find inspiration for how to do this film. I made a film about 10 years ago called Evelyn that’s about my brother. I had a brother who, very sadly, took his own life. My family really struggled to talk about this. We just couldn’t say his name. One day, after a long time of just not really being able to deal with this, we decided to walk the length of the United Kingdom. On that journey, we filmed it, the idea was to visit places where we’d spent time with my brother when he was alive. We walked, and along the way, we kept meeting strangers who would see the camera and say, “What are you guys doing?” We’d have these really deeply moving, unbelievable conversations. Actually, they’re kind of the best bit in the film. I thought: is there a way of taking that idea of meeting people and having conversations? Does that get to the heart of what I think P. K.’s story is about? It’s about how the kindness of strangers helped him learn to love himself. With that in mind, we set off with P. K. and an amazing young actor. We did a kind of odyssey of our own, where we would meet people along the way. The kindness of strangers helped P. K. learn to love himself — I think that, in some ways, encapsulates the heart of this story. It felt like the way to tell that was to go and follow parts of P. K.’s original route, meet strangers, and document those interacti
