Nissar Modi(II)
- Writer
- Director
Nissar Modi was born and raised in London, England. He graduated with a B.A. (Hons) in Film Production from the University of Southern California, and first worked in commercials and music videos at Propaganda Films and then Anonymous Content. He moved into writing full-time when Anonymous Content's Steve Golin hired him to adapt Robert Kyle's noir novel The Golden Urge. His second screenplay, Gringo Bay, co-written with Pascal Leister, was selected to the Emerging Narrative Program at the 2008 Independent Feature Project, and was the recipient of a Panasonic Digital Filmmaker Grant.
Nissar then optioned and adapted the award-winning young adult novel Z For Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien. The resulting film was directed by Craig Zobel, Stars Margot Robbie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Chris Pine, premiered in competition at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, and was released the following August by Lionsgate / Roadside Attractions. It received rave reviews from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal among numerous others.
Over the last few years, Nissar's scripts and rewrites have included Caves Of Steel, an adaptation of legendary sci-fi author Isaac Asimov's novel, for 20th Century Fox and producer Simon Kinberg; Change Agent, an adaptation of Daniel Suarez's bestseller for Netflix; Pinkerton, a period crime drama for Sony Pictures and Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way; and The Royals Family, the official biopic of legendary cricketer Shane Warne for Limelight. Two of his most recent scripts - Kick, a biopic of JFK's younger sister Kick Kennedy with Chloe Moretz attached to star and Jennifer Fox to direct, and This Sweet Sickness, an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel with Tom Hardy producing - are scheduled to go into production in Spring 2023.
On the TV front, Nissar wrote an adaptation of Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian" for the BBC, and a spinoff of "Wuthering Heights" for Moonage Pictures and BBC Studios, and is currently developing a limited series adaptation of New York Times bestseller "The Indifferent Stars Above" in conjunction with director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) and Two and Two Pictures.
His short story "The Darkish Man" was published by Doubleday in the anthology The Blumhouse Book of Nightmares: The Haunted City.
Nissar then optioned and adapted the award-winning young adult novel Z For Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien. The resulting film was directed by Craig Zobel, Stars Margot Robbie, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Chris Pine, premiered in competition at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, and was released the following August by Lionsgate / Roadside Attractions. It received rave reviews from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal among numerous others.
Over the last few years, Nissar's scripts and rewrites have included Caves Of Steel, an adaptation of legendary sci-fi author Isaac Asimov's novel, for 20th Century Fox and producer Simon Kinberg; Change Agent, an adaptation of Daniel Suarez's bestseller for Netflix; Pinkerton, a period crime drama for Sony Pictures and Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way; and The Royals Family, the official biopic of legendary cricketer Shane Warne for Limelight. Two of his most recent scripts - Kick, a biopic of JFK's younger sister Kick Kennedy with Chloe Moretz attached to star and Jennifer Fox to direct, and This Sweet Sickness, an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel with Tom Hardy producing - are scheduled to go into production in Spring 2023.
On the TV front, Nissar wrote an adaptation of Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian" for the BBC, and a spinoff of "Wuthering Heights" for Moonage Pictures and BBC Studios, and is currently developing a limited series adaptation of New York Times bestseller "The Indifferent Stars Above" in conjunction with director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) and Two and Two Pictures.
His short story "The Darkish Man" was published by Doubleday in the anthology The Blumhouse Book of Nightmares: The Haunted City.
