Love Mod(e)

Kukunoor,the maker of films such as Dor,Iqbal,Rockford and Hyderabad Blues,had famously said that love stories were not for him. But Cupid,it turns out,has finally caught up with the director. Kukunoor says he felt the spark while watching a Taiwanese film,Keeping Watch,as a jury member of the Asian Festival of First Films in Singapore. “In a small part of Keeping Watch,I saw an entire version of my own film and I knew I would set it in a Utopian town in the hills and build another world,” says Kukunoor.

Mod,which releases on October 14,is about a young girl (Ayesha Takia) who repairs watches in a small town called Ganga. “Unlike me,she’s quiet and reserved,” chips in Takia,ecstatic to be working again with Kukunoor after Dor,which she terms an an “epic”. Things change for the protagonist when a stranger (Rannvijay) comes to the store,and keeps returning to get his watch repaired. He had been in love with the girl in school,but their lives soon arrive at a turning point or mod. “It’s my first solo film. I have a romantic side to me which the audience will see,” says Rannvijay,who has been part of MTV Roadies for nine years and cultivated a rough-and-tough image.

Though Kukunoor’s Tasveer 8 x 10 with Akshay Kumar and Aashayein with John Abraham didn’t do well at the box office,the director maintains that all his movies have been made with both passion and belief. “I stand by them and don’t find excuses to justify the failure. The audience is constantly changing,and I refuse to fall into the trap of analysing an audience and making a film like a job,” says Kukunoor. After a love story,he is now planning to write and direct some action,horror and sci-fi films.