‘Margarita with a Straw’ actor Sayani Gupta is stepping into a new phase as she launches her production house, ‘Sayani Gupta Movies’ (SGM). Leading the slate is her directorial debut short film ‘Aasmani’, which becomes the first project under the banner.
After spending over a decade working across films and streaming, the ‘Four More Shots Please’ actor said the shift towards production comes from a growing need to be more involved in storytelling from the ground up.
“It has been a long dream. I’ve been wanting to tell certain kinds of stories and the idea is to be able to create an enabling space for collaboration. We will go slowly but steadily, concentrating on one film at a time. For us, the quality of writing, craft, storytelling will always take precedence and for that to happen, the right kind of time, care and attention needs to be given to every project,” said the ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’ actor.
Starring Revathy along with Daria Bedi and Abhay Kaul, ‘Aasmani’ has been written, directed and produced by Sayani. At the same time, she has earlier co-produced projects like ‘Where the Winds Blow’ and ‘Upar Neeche’ and various short films like ‘Dear Men’ and Oscar-qualifying ‘Shameless’, ‘Aasmani’ is her first full-blown production.
Sayani spent over a year scouting locations across the state of Maharashtra. Pune eventually became their base, given her connection to her alma mater, FTII. The film also brings together executive producers Nikkhil Advani, Dia Mirza and Ananya Rane.