The screening, a month after Priyanka Chopra hosted the film's New York debut, traces PK Mahanandia's real-life cycle journey from India to Sweden for love.
Fifty years ago, an Indian artist called PK Mahanandia got on a bicycle in India and did not stop until he reached Sweden. He was going after a woman named Lotta, whom he'd met in India before she returned home. That ride is now a documentary, The Cycle Of Love, and it just had its London premiere with Elli AvrRam in the room.
The London screening came a month after the film's New York premiere, which Priyanka Chopra hosted, according to Bollywood Hungama. Elli's presence in London wasn't incidental. She's known the family for years, going back to 2017, when she first read the book on which the documentary is based.
"I have known the family for many years, and we have been trying to meet each other for the longest," Elli said. "PK and Lotta's story is so incredibly inspiring and the world needs to hear it because it fills your heart with so much hope to believe in the power of love and humanity."
What pulled her in initially wasn't Bollywood glamour. It was recognition. Elli is Swedish herself, and she's spoken before about feeling drawn to India from a young age, which is more or less Lotta's story in reverse. "What I love so much when I read their book back in 2017 is that I connected so much to Lotta and her calling for India," she said. "Since I'm from Sweden myself, and have always been drawn to India from a young age, there's so much I relate to."
The documentary itself sticks close to the facts, and Elli was firm about that point. "It's not a concept, it's a documentary based on their love story," she said. "How they met and how PK decided to go all the way to Sweden from India, on a bicycle, and he actually did it! Today they have been married for 50 years!" No dramatic license, no composite characters. Just a man who pedalled across countries because the woman he loved had gone home.
Meeting PK and Lotta in person at the London screening, after years of reading about them, was clearly the bigger moment for Elli than the red carpet itself. "Meeting them finally in person and seeing their love still being so alive is heartwarming," she said. "The world needs more of this."
On the actual mechanics of attending, Elli kept it simple. "I'm happy to have come here to support them, share their story and message that comes with it," she said.
Between the Priyanka Chopra-hosted New York debut and now the London premiere, The Cycle Of Love has picked up a fairly high-profile circuit for what is, at its core, a small, decades-old love story. Whether it gets a wider theatrical release beyond these premieres hasn't been announced yet.
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