Entertainment
The Cycle of Love Festival Crowdpleaser Took a Year to Reach Theaters
Most of the time, if a movie plays well at a festival and proves itself a crowdpleaser, a distributor will snap it up. Last Labor Day Weekend, Oscar-winner Orlando von Einsiedel (“White Helmets”) was thrilled when his documentary “The Cycle of Love” wowed Telluride audiences. The same was true at Middleburg and other festivals.
The movie is a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction heart-tugger about a Dalit sketch artist (P.K. Mahanandia) who in 1977 enjoys a halcyon summer of love in New Delhi with a Swedish tourist (Lotta von Schedvin), who doesn’t care about his low caste. After she returns home, the smitten young man sells his possessions to buy a bike and pedals 6,000 miles to find her. He supports himself along the route by trading his drawings of people for food. The bicycle odyssey takes four months and three weeks.
Von Einsiedel was giving a speech in Sweden at a Nobel Peace Prize event when two young people came up to him, handed him a book, and said, “We know your work, and this is our parents’ story.” He eventually picked up the book and saw the cinematic possibilities. He met with P.K. and Lotta in their house deep in the Swedish woods. On their first meeting, the mid-70s P.K. did a headstand. “I fell head over heels in love,” said von Einsiedel on Zoom. “They are the most open, warm, generous people. I wanted to spend the next few years surrounded by them, sharing their story.”
The movie, a rare nonfiction romance, uses every tool in the documentary arsenal to make the story fly. (Except AI.) Von Einsiedel shot most of this extended road movie over seven weeks in India and Sweden, using India to sub for more than a dozen locations (including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Germany, and Austria) on the “hippie trail” from New Delhi to Borås, Sweden.
The skeleton crew roughed it from the Himalayas to the desert in Rajasthan and the jungle in Odisha. The filmmaker hired an actor (Chirag Lobo) to play the young P.K., but shot the reenactments like a documentary, pitting the actor against real people in real time.
“Nothing is scripted,” said von Einsiedel. “Everything is from the actors themselves. Everything is improvised, and all the other people we meet along the way, they’re communities of Afghans, Iranians, and Turks. Everywhere we’d go, we would find normal everyday people, and we’d street cast people in the morning and tell everybody, ‘An actor is recreating a journey from 50 years ago. Would you come and have your portrait drawn and have a chat?’ And then we’d let the camera roll. A lot of the actor’s job was to listen to people talking about hopes and dreams and love and marriage.”
The mature P.K.’s charming narration fuels the movie. “If somebody’s going to carry a film, they’ve got to have charisma, be a raconteur to some degree,” said the director. “And he has that in droves. That’s one of the key reasons he survived and could do this journey because, despite language and cultural differences, he charmed everyone he met. He inspired them, and people wanted to help him. They wanted him to stay with them. They believed in the love story, and they wanted to champion him and make sure he made it safely across the world.”
So why the long gestation? Netflix, which released the Oscar-winning short “White Helmets” and feature “Virunga,” wasn’t on Einsiedel’s distributor wish list because he wanted a theatrical release. Many established theatrical distributors are also wary of the current depressed market for documentaries.
“Docs have not had a robust acquisition market for a few years because of the double whammy of declining box office and streamers saying no one watches docs on their platforms with the exception of celebrity, music and true crime,” wrote one veteran distribution executive in an email. “If you do a U.S. box office chart of 2023-2026 theatrical docs, it’s pretty sad. After a few music docs, ‘Am I Racist’ and ‘Melania,’ and a couple of docs around angry Middle East topics, almost nothing. ‘Cookie Queens’ got to 600K, which was a feat.”
The Telluride response gave the filmmakers the confidence to pursue a theatrical release. Einsiedel, UK distributor and global sales outfit Dogwoof, and his producers took the time to raise enough funding to support a theatrical North American release via service distributor Variance. The movie is booked worldwide, but other openings will follow the U.S.
“There are challenges,” said von Einsiedel. “We also turned down some opportunities because we wanted to fight for a theatrical. From the beginning, it always felt that we wanted people to experience this in the cinema. It’s a lot of work to make that happen, and we spent the last 12 months since Telluride raising money. We’ve had to learn as a team to build the right coalition of partners to raise the finance.”
Variance president and founder Dylan Marchetti plans a long run in theaters starting at New York’s Angelica on August 28. Von Einsiedel will do Q&As (with surprise guests) in New York, followed by Los Angeles and San Francisco, and in September and October the movie will hit another 20-30 markets, including Boston and Seattle. “It’s a beautiful romantic universal story,” said Marchetti. “People who see this will tell other people to see it. When you start with a film like this, word of mouth escapes. Coolidge Corner will unlock Amherst Cinema. We will take time with it and give people time to talk.”
The filmmakers have also hired established Oscar campaign veteran Chris Albert (Oscar-nominated “Porcelain War”) and 42West to push the film with documentary voters. If enough people see it, it’s a surefire Oscar contender.
“This is a film which cuts across politics,” said von Einsiedel. “I wanted to tell a positive, joyful story. I’ve spent a career making docs about what I believe are important, urgent issues, and always, that will exist as a reason to make documentaries. But why can’t docs be about happiness and joy? Love is something everybody can agree on. All you need is love.”
“The Cycle of Love” opens August 28 from Variance Films.
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It’s a confusing time to be a WNBA fan.
On the one hand, the league has hit record ratings highs, with the Aug. 16 matchup between the Atlanta Dream and the Indiana Fever marking the most-watched WNBA game ever on cable.
But that success came as the league has been caught in the throes of a culture war, with political controversies surrounding Fever players Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham dominating discourse about the league and fueling chatter on conservative media — including Fox News, which has devoted 13 and a half hours this summer to covering the WNBA, per Media Matters.
The controversy has fueled attention and social chatter for women’s professional basketball, but crediting it for the league’s viewership victories does a disservice to the actual game play. Women’s sports have been on an upward ratings trajectory over the past couple years and the WNBA in particular received a shot in the arm from Clark, whose sharp-shooting ability has served as a tide that’s lifting all teams.
The haters, meanwhile, aren’t nearly as big a factor as social media would indicate.
“The people that want to see it fail will use this as a reason for not watching, when they probably were never watching to begin with,” veteran sports journalist and Northwestern professor Melissa Isaacson told TheWrap. “The people who are really women’s basketball fans will continue to enjoy it as a product that continues to improve.”
For anyone unfamiliar with the drama, it boils down to two main controversies. The first centered on Clark, who was a major factor in the ratings records for the 2024 NCAA Women’s Championship. Clark’s stardom has remained, though an ugly dynamic has emerged where nearly every move made against her by a Black player sparks claims from the right that it is racially motivated, to the extent that 11 Republican lawmakers wrote WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert saying she had not addressed “repeated acts of unnecessary physical hostility and violence” against Clark.
The other side of the controversy involves Cunningham, who has been dubbed “MAGA Barbie” and become the right’s favorite WNBA player, after voicing her opposition to transgender women playing in women’s sports. The furor led to two former NBA players, Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, trolling trans rights advocates by citing their intentions to enter into the 2027 draft as they test the gender eligibility requirements.
The WNBA subsequently shut that down. And to be clear, no one takes them seriously.
While the WNBA league has become the right’s latest obsession, that intense interest will eventually cool as the next outrage takes center stage. And given that most right-wingers are engaging with the league on external platforms like social media or Fox News, fading attention might not even play much of a factor — if at all — in viewership.
For the most part, the WNBA’s most loyal fans have not been swayed by the drama. It’s unlikely any true fans will stray.
With the pipeline of incoming talent from the college ranks, USC Annenberg professor Miki Turner told TheWrap, “the dub is here to stay.”
“It’s been here 30 years already, and profit margins were low for about the first 10-20 years of its existence, so the fact that it has survived and expanded gives me hope that they can rise above all of the current drama,” Turner said.
In the grand scheme of things, the controversies shouldn’t faze the growth of the league, which signed an 11-year media rights agreement with Versant for USA Network to present WNBA games starting with the 2026 season.
The way forward requires some “better leadership in the front office” and a strategic approach forward from players as they engage — or don’t — with media, according to Turner. “Players are going to have to not so much watch what they say, but watch how they say it,” Turner said. “Maybe at this point in time, [Caitlin Clark’s] silence is golden.”
P.S. Streaming, linear, theatrical, creators: audiences have more places to spend their time than ever. At TheGrill Sept. 30, we’re talking with the people competing for that attention. AI Creator Day kicks things off Sept. 29. Subscribers get 50% off through Sept. 8 with code PROPERKS50.
Dolly Parton tribute specials draw eyes
Following Dolly Parton’s death on Tuesday, several networks mobilized to air specials paying tribute to the beloved country music icon and philanthropist, with each program drawing notable audiences.
ABC News’ “Dolly Parton: An American Original – Special Edition of 20/20″ scored 4.03 million viewers, almost doubling ratings for CBS’ “Dolly Parton – An American Icon,” which went head-to-head with ABC’s special and brought in 2.17 million viewers. “Dolly Parton: An American Original” also scored the best non-sports 10 p.m. telecast on any network in three months, since the season finale of CBS’ “Boston Blue.”
Rosie O’Donnell holds down ratings for Kimmel
Rosie O’Donnell made a splash in her stint as a summer substitute for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and the early ratings said so as well. On her first night hosting for the week of Aug. 24, O’Donnell brought in 1.87 million total viewers, according to preliminary Nielsen live-plus-same-day figures reported by LateNighter. It marks the biggest audience for any of Kimmel’s guest hosts so far this summer.
While O’Donnell outpaced the fellow late night shows in the demo, the viewership didn’t by any means outpace Kimmel himself, who typically cracks 2 million viewers. Ratings for her full week of hosting will be available in the coming days.
“Big Brother” scores ratings growth
As CBS’ “Big Brother” celebrates its 1,000th episode tonight, the reality competition show is seeing notable ratings growth. Season 28 is averaging 5.21 million multiplatform viewers, a 10% increase year over year, according to Nielsen live-plus-seven-day figures.
Demo viewership across both multiplatform and streaming are also up, with the 25-54 demo rising 21% while the 18-49 demo rose 15%.
ICYMI:
- “Outer Banks” Season 5 launched atop Netflix’s most-watched TV shows lists with 9.4 million views, sliding down from last season
- Sunny Sandler’s “Don’t Say Good Luck” led Netflix’s top movies with 12.8 million views
- DC Studios’ “Lanterns” debuted among the top five series premieres on HBO Max
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The Edinburgh TV Festival has announced the winners of its 2026 awards. HBO series The Pitt was named Best International Drama, while The Celebrity Traitors won Best Entertainment or Reality Series. The Celebrity Traitors host Claudia Winkleman took home Best TV Presenter – Entertainment. BBC transgender drama What It Feels Like for a Girl scooped […]
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EXCLUSIVE: Andrew “King Bach” Bachelor has wrapped on the Los Angeles shoot for Tap Twice, an indie supernatural horror film marking his feature directorial debut, in which he also stars.
In the film, a grieving couple retreats to an isolated estate where the walls record every word — and a presence learns to speak in their voices.
Others in the cast include Chelsea Tavares (All American), Joel McKinnon Miller (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Carson Fagerbakke (Shifting Gears), Augusta Liv (The Beauty), Gillian Nation (Baywatch) and Joe Massingill (Spider-Noir).
Christina and Andrew Bachelor produced alongside Ryan Lewis and Ilya Pozin in association with Luna Media Company.
A comedian, actor and content creator with over 70 million followers across social platforms, Bachelor released his debut comedy special Like, Share, And Comment, directed by Jo Koy, in June. As an actor, he’ll be seen coming up in Universal’s Violent Night 2, Amazon MGM’s Road House 2 and romantic comedy Goodbye Girl, and the indie crime thriller Good in the Room. He is repped by Christina Bachelor, Artists First, CAA, and Duncan Hedges of Hansen, Jacobson, Teller.
Tavares is repped by Innovative Artists; McKinnon Miller by Michael Greene Artists Agency; Fagerbakke by Main Title Entertainment and Buchwald; Liv by AEFH; Nation by Luber Roklin; and Massingill by Venture, J Pervis Talent Agency, Ellis Talent Group, and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman.
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‘The Pitt’ & ‘The Celebrity Traitors’ Win Prizes At Edinburgh TV Festival Awards
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