Nagesh Kukunoor on his Telugu foray: ‘Modern Love Hyderabad’ gave me a free rein

Hyderabad: For renowned director Nagesh Kukunoor, making ‘Modern Love Hyderabad’ is a homecoming of sorts. Although his mother tongue is Telugu, most of Nagesh’s work till date has been in Hindi.

Nagesh Kukunoor, who directed films including the famous Hyderabad Blues, Rockford, Iqbal and Do, is not only the showrunner (and writer) of the series, he has directed three of the six-episodic stories in his mother tongue Telugu, which has bolstered his courage to make content in this language.

Commenting on his foray into Telugu language content, the filmmaker said, “Over the years, I got asked if I was going to make movies in Telugu and I would always tell the people that when I’m confident about tackling the language, I will. It was just sheer coincidence that I started shooting this film a little before Modern Love. Otherwise, I think my first foray into the Telugu space would have been Modern Love Hyderabad because it allowed me to explore different kinds of stories. It gave me a chance to be creative in writing”.

Though Telugu is Nagesh’s mother tongue, the director grew up speaking largely in English and Dakhni, and thus the transition to Hindi has been easier for him.

Elaborating on the creative freedom he enjoyed with the Prime Video series, Kukunoor said that while directing a typical feature film, one has to stick to one storyline and what does or doesn’t work for the audience. However, with Modern Love Hyderabad, it wasn’t the same.

“Here, I had free rein. So, this was far more exciting to venture into the Telugu space. Having shot it now, I’m a whole lot more open to working. Clearly, my confidence to work with my mother tongue has grown tenfold because of the show and by working with multiple actors. So, I think I might do more”.

While he recently made his first Telugu feature film, Good Luck Sakhi, it was with Modern Love Hyderabad that he got to helm three stories with distinctive touches, a tough task but something that challenged and appealed to him.

Prime Video’s first Telugu Amazon Original series, Modern Love Hyderabad explores the vast spectrum of love through six beautifully woven stories.

The three stories directed by Nagesh for Modern Love Hyderabad include Suhasini Maniratnam-Naresh Agastya’s Why Did She Leave Me There, Ritu Varma’s and Aadhi Pinisetty’s Fuzzy, Purple & Full of Thorns, and Nithya Menen – Revathy-starrer My Unlikely Pandemic Dream Partner.

Inspired by the famous New York Times column, Modern Love Hyderabad strings together six heartfelt episodes of love. The remaining episodes are directed by Venkatesh Maha, Uday Gurrala and Devika Buhadhanam and features a cast including Abijeet Duddala, Malavika Nair, Ulka Gupta, Naresh and Komalee Prasad.

Produced under the banner of SIC Productions, Modern Love Hyderabad will stream on Prime Video starting 8 July.