Daisy Shah & Viraf Patell shine in 'The Elephant In The Room'

Co-founder and content head at Alter Ego Production, Aartie Miranni says that The Elephant in the Room delivers its message in a fun and unique manner. She is confident that the audience will appreciate the treatment of the project.

“So, the original story is written by both me and Nitinn, my husband, and it is something very special as we have this relationship with Ganpati. We have been bringing him home for the last 8-9 years and those 2 days are the most beautiful in our house. We have so many conversations with “Gannu” (as we call him) and it is almost as if he is part of our family. While thinking about that idea one day, we sort of agreed to write about a situation where our protagonist starts having conversations with Gannu and then how the day unfolds. The treatment is not in the way some of the recent movies and series have narrated. There is no judgment and preachiness in our attempt. It is fun and light. Also, we all have great groups of friends but not necessarily we are true to them. So, the title is a word play on – ‘it took an elephant to come in the room to bring out the elephant in the room’,” she says.

Talking about her background, she says, “I am actually quite a new entrant to the creative field. I have always been part of the corporate world, and working across countries over the last 23 years. I am an HR professional and very happy at that so this dabbling into the creative world and storytelling is not out of boredom rather the need to express and share experiences.”

She adds, “I had read something during Covid days (as the pandemic time was such a reflection on how one was leading the life, choices etc) that sort of stayed with me i.e. ‘You can be whoever you want to be’ and there is no limitation to what a human mind can achieve.”

Production was something that happened naturally with Aartie. “After meeting my husband, who is an actor, a stand-up comic, a writer and a very talented multi-faceted personality, I started interacting with people from the industry. And it is the charm and beauty of dreams and possibilities that drew me to this field and I wanted to back myself and learn the ropes of filmmaking and start with something small and original,” she says.

Aartie is looking forward to a lot of interesting work ahead. “So, The Elephant in the Room is my first production as a title producer, however I am onto this journey now where I am putting projects, web series and movies together and having opportunities to take the characters to the world. I am not in any hurry as I don’t want to compromise on my original stories and will keep on working on my characters to know them better and hopefully they will find their lives on the screen soon!”

She adds, “I am personally a big supporter of original, real urban and contemporary content. I want to be associated with projects which talk about flawed humans and relationships as we all are in reality. So Zoya Akhtar, Shakun Batra story telling interests me and, of course, thrillers and murder twists are the best!”
Coming back to The Elephant in the room, the casting was fun, says Aartie, adding, 
“We are so happy that we got an opportunity to work with such a great cast. Actually, casting Meher was the most critical one and we thought of many people, essentially friends to start with. However, one day Daisy and we were having coffee and discussing God and his ways and somehow very organically she said a few things that we had the character of Meher saying in the story and bang – we had our Meher. Rest of the cast just fell into place. Daisy is brilliant in the film and everyone has done outstanding work. We cannot thank them enough for the support.”

The short film will stream on Humaramovie YouTube Platform from 19th September. Directed by Krishan Hooda, it features Daisy Shah, Viraf Patell, Nitinn R Miranni, Salonie Patel, Pratiksha Sen and Akanksha Pandey.