Human: Vipul Shah Talks About Digital Debut Show, Says 'It Goes Beyond Human Drug Trials'

Filmmaker Vipul Shah says his upcoming medical thriller series Human, starring Shefali Shah and Kirti Kulhari, aims to cut through all strata of society as it juxtaposes the underbelly of human drug trials with the lives affected by it. Human, a 10-episode Disney + Hotstar show, is co-directed by Vipul and Zubaan maker Mozez Singh, both helming five episodes each.

Human marks the digital directorial debut of Vipul, who has helmed films like Namastey London, Waqt: The Race Against Time and Aankhen. In an interview with PTI, the director said the show tackles the issue of human drug trials from all possible angles.

"As it deals with the whole society, we wanted to represent the entire society through the show. Not just touch the rich class or the poor class... We wanted to go as wide as possible. "You will see the pharma corporate world, the world of doctors--ethical and unethical--the suffering of common people, the brokers, the victims who become subjects of these human trials without their knowledge," he said.

Though the series is mounted on the premise of chronicling the underbelly of the medical world, Vipul said it does not lose out on its emotional core.

"Amidst all of this, there are personal relationships. So it goes beyond the human drug testing (angle) into the real emotions that human beings live with. Everything is rolled into one story. The show is extremely vast and at the same time, intimate," the 54-year-old added.

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The series also marks a reunion for Vipul with wife Shefali, whom he directed in the 2005 family drama Waqt: The Race Against Time. Human is a story of three principal characters, Dr Gauri, played by Shefali, Dr Saira (Kulhari) -- both reputed doctors working in Bhopal -- while Mardaani 2 fame actor Vishal Jethwa plays a common man from a ghetto, who unknowingly gets trapped into the scam of human drug testing.

The show traces how their lives intersect and what eventually transpires because of that clash. Seema Biswas, Ram Kapoor, Mohan Agashe, Aditya Srivastava and Atul Kumar round out the cast of the series.

Vipul said he had originally wanted to make a movie on the subject for which he had penned 28 drafts, but realised that it is not the right medium for the story. "We realised when we were trying to highlight the human drug testing angle, the personal relationships angle was not getting enough time and vice versa.

"Then, I decided to approach it differently and approached Mozez to relook at it. He came back to me with a story for a digital format, developed by him and writer Ishani Banerjee. We then set up a writers room and began working on it."

The director said he was invested in bringing the story to the screen for it had the potential to flesh out the duality of the medical world. "It is ironic that we create medicines to save people. But while creating it, our greed, ambition, and need to test them, also results in the death of many. This is a contrasting emotion for the medical world. It touches everyone's life as it is about our survival."

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Human, co-written by Stuti Nair and Aasif Moyal, has been shot across Mumbai, Alibaugh and Bhopal. The team went on floors in January but had to pause because of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. "Now just a day's shooting is left, which we would finish on July 28," Vipul added.