Director Tanveer Bookwala opens up about the female cast in Amazon miniTV’s The Haunting

Amazon miniTV recently premiered their short thriller-horror movie, The Haunting. Directed by Tanveer Bookwala, the short film creates a palpable sense of dread, gradually engulfing the audience in its spine-chilling narrative.

Talking about an all-female cast, Director Tanveer Bookwala opened up about the process and his thoughts behind roping in Gul Panag, Erica Fernades, and Prakruti Mishra. He said “Hard to pick favourites. All three women put heart and soul into the project, shooting long hours, without complaining, and gave me so many interesting inputs to their characters. It all made the film, what it is. If I had to pick, I would choose Erica. Not comparing the other two, but simply because she surprised me. We are unfair to actors that come from TV and associate them with a certain, LOUD key of acting. It is wrong. If directed well, some of them really deliver on both substance and subtlety. In the past, actors like Riddhi Dogra, Barun Sobti, and Sanaya Irani, have also proven this with their shows. Erica, I had only seen on TV and she really, really, blew my mind, with her performance. I mean this business is so brutal, right? And it’s so difficult, especially for actors, to get work. I just feel like we really need to put in that extra effort and live each other up and battle perception.”

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The director of The Haunting further listed the challenges encountered while making the gripping horror film. Tanveer said, “Time. The one thing that every creator struggles with. Good horror takes time. Treatment needs resources. Between makeup, prosthetics, on-camera effects, and the ticking clock of commerce, it is a difficult journey to make effective and impactful horror. However, I believe that we’ve done a pretty good job and welcomed the challenges, with demonic drum rolls.”

The horror film ‘The Haunting’, is streaming live, on Amazon miniTV exclusively for free, accessible with the click-of-a-button on Amazon’s shopping app, Fire TV, and desktop.