Nagesh Kukunoor: A bright, sunny film for these messed up times

Director Nagesh Kukunoor discusses his first Telugu feature film ‘Good Luck Sakhi’, starring Keerthy Suresh as a shooter, scheduled to release in theatres on January 28

Nagesh Kukunoor describes his first Telugu film Good Luck Sakhi, starring Keerthy Suresh as a 10-metre rifle shooter, as “a bright, sunny film to watch in these messed up [pandemic] times.” It has taken the Hyderabadi writer-director a little more than two decades to do a homecoming, with a full-fledged Telugu film.

Filmed partly in 2019 and in 2020 after the first lockdown, the film has taken its time to arrive in theatres, with each wave of COVID-19 throwing the release schedules of several films out of gear. Settling down for this interview in his office, Kukunoor reminisces, “I moved on from Good Luck Sakhi and made Season 2 of City of Dreams (Disney+ Hotstar); when I returned to the film months later to check the colour grading on a large screen, I watched it with a smile. It’s a happy film in an utopian space that I keep returning to.”

Kukunoor had written Good Luck Sakhi years ago, intending to collaborate with late director Hrishikesh Mukherjee. A fictional story emerged after he spotted a news clipping of shooters Chandro Tomar and Prakashi Tomar 23 years ago.