‘Modern Love Hyderabad’ to reflect the multicultural, multilingual fabric of the city

Producer Elahe Hiptoola holds forth on the anthology directed by Nagesh Kukunoor, Venkatesh Maha, Uday Gurrala and Devika Bahudhanam, which will stream on Amazon Prime Video

Hyderabad is the hero of the six stories of the anthology Modern Love Hyderabad, which will stream on Amazon Prime Video from July 8, believes producer Elahe Hiptoola. She and her core team pored over 1500 stories of Modern Love, the well-known column of the New York Times. “It was a herculean task. We chose stories that we felt could not be set in any other city. The stories explore love between couples, grandmother and grandson, father and daughter, and so on.”

The Hyderabad anthology comes on the heels of Modern Love Mumbai. While the showrunner Nagesh Kukunoor has directed three stories, directors Venkatesh Maha, Uday Gurrala and Devika Bahudhanam have helmed the other stories. 

Kukunoor became the face of indie cinema when he directed the breakthrough film Hyderabad Blues in 1998. Maha is recognised for his indie-spirited Telugu film Care of Kancharapalem and Gurrala for Mail: Kambalapally Kathalu. For the anthology, Elahe and Nagesh wanted like-minded filmmakers on board. 

Elahe points out similarities between Kukunoor, Maha and Gurrala: “Nagesh has had strong-willed female characters in several of his films such as Dor and Iqbal. To date, the mother and sister have more recall than the character of Iqbal. We found that Venkatesh Maha and Uday are also writer-directors who are gender sensitive and their method of storytelling is understated.” Devika has been a creative and executive producer for some of Kukunoor’s films and also worked with production house Arka Media during the making of Baahubali - The Beginning.

The anthology stars Revathy, Suhasini Maniratnam, Nithya Menen, Aadhi Pinisetty, Ritu Varma, V K Naresh, Abijeet Duddala, Rag Mayur and Komala Prasad, among others. “The directors made the casting call going by what is necessary for the stories. We were aware that those who have watched American Modern Love would recall the performances of actors such as Anne Hathaway and Ed Sheeran,” Elahe adds. 

For Amazon Prime Video, this anthology marks its entry into Hyderabad. Both Elahe and Aparna Purohit, Head of India Originals for the platform, point out that the anthology’s language will represent the multicultural and multilingual fabric of Hyderabad with a mix of Telugu, English, Dakhni and Urdu. 

Aparna admits that it has taken a while for the digital platform to foray into Hyderabad, much after it explored Tamil anthologies Putham Pudhu Kaalai, Putham Pudhu Kaalai Vidiyadha and the web series Suzhal: “Development takes time; we have been trying to cater to diverse viewers across the country and give them an immersive viewing experience. For Modern Love Hyderabad, we wanted the anthology to be in the hands of someone who loves the city. Elahe and Nagesh have ensured that the stories appear rooted in the city.” Further, Aparna points out that Elahe was among the first female producers when she entered film production in 1999 with Rockford.