Grain Media, the London-based award-winning film production company co-founded by film director Orlando von Einsiedel has commenced, in partnership with Kalabati Pictures, production on their latest documentary, tentatively titled Cycling For Love.
The project synopsis describes how, in 1977, PK, a 25 year-old Delhi street artist from a poor family, picked up a handful of paintbrushes and a second-hand bicycle and set off on a 7,000-mile cross-continent mission to find Lotta, the woman who had captured his heart. “A love story like no other, Cycling For Love is an inspiring, heart-warming, epic true-life adventure about the search for self-belief, overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles and risking everything for what your heart tells you,” read the film notes.
Building on the success of the book ‘The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love’ by Per J Andersson, the film charts the incredible story of Indian artist PK Mahanandia and Swedish tourist Lotta von Schedvin who met on a winter evening in Delhi in 1975 when she asked him to draw her portrait. What eventually followed was Mahanandia making an epic journey by bicycle from India to Europe – all for love.
“Grain Media have been given exclusive access, and in partnership with Kalabati Pictures will bring this beautiful, thrilling and life-affirming tale to the big screen for the very first time,” read the film notes.
Orlando von Einsiedel (Virunga, The White Helmets, Evelyn) is directing and Grain Media’s Chloe Leland and Harri Grace will produce, alongside Emelie and Karl Mahanandia von Schedvin and Chris Silvestri who will produce for Kalabati Pictures.
Filming has already begun in Sweden and the shoot “will almost faithfully mirror Mahanandia’s epic overland journey from India to Sweden. An innovative mix of storytelling techniques is planned that blends vérité documentary, interviews and archive with dramatic re-enactments and animation.”
Director Orlando von Einsiedel comments: “Ever since my co-producers, Emelie and Karl Mahanandia von Schedvin, tracked me down at an event I was speaking at in Sweden, and handed me a copy of their parent’s book, I’ve been enthralled with this beautiful story. This enchantment has only become stronger the more I have come to understand the depths of the narrative and spent time getting to know PK and Lotta themselves.
“Of course I was drawn to this as it’s a beautiful and deeply inspiring narrative about young love – a subject matter rarely covered in documentary form. However it is about so much more than that – it’s a story about human destiny, finding a way to believe in yourself despite the world being stacked against you and risking everything for a dream.”
Grain has won over 150 international awards, spanning multiple genres, including two Academy Awards (Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone [If You’re A Girl], The White Helmets), an EMMY, a BAFTA, a Peabody and a duPont-Columbia Award for outstanding journalism.
Kalabati Pictures (Kala meaning “art”, bati meaning “light”) is a Sweden-based film production company with a “commitment to tell inspirational stories to a global audience – highlighting the best of humanity.”
