CHENNAI : If you’re friends with director Sherief—who recently made his directorial debut with Vaibhav’s Ranam: Aram Thavarel—chances are that a unique incident from your life will make its way into one of his future scripts. In Ranam, for example, Vaibhav’s character suffers from a condition called Transient Ischemic Attack. Sherief shares that he came to know of the condition from a friend. “A friend of mine was diagnosed with this condition after an accident. This stroke-like condition paralyses him and makes him go blind for a couple of minutes, all of a sudden. I did my research and kept material ready in my library. While writing Ranam, I felt that this condition would be apt as a plot device for Vaibhav’s character Siva.”
Transient Ischemic Attack is not the only aspect inspired by real life in Ranam. Sherief reveals that he also learnt about the existence of crime writers, Siva’s side business in the film, from a friend. “Someone I know is a scriptwriter, and he has also written such crime stories for various ongoing investigations,” Sherief says, explaining that such writers are employed off the record. “Often, cases will have evidence summing up to a crime, but the crime will still be insoluble. Police officials then ask such crime writers to pen their version of the crime, unofficially, to get a fresh perspective. Again, I did my research about this and while writing Ranam, I realised that it fit perfectly in this world.”
Coming to the central focus of the film, Necrophilia, the director shares that a court verdict from Karnataka roused him to make a film about it. “Last year, I read a judgement in Karnataka for a murder and rape case. As the perpetrator had first murdered and then raped the lifeless body, he was only sentenced to one-lifetime imprisonment because the rape of a corpse is not a punishable offence,” he says. But that was merely the tip of the iceberg for Sherief.
"I started researching and I found that this happened to a famous sex symbol’s mortal remains in the 90s in Tamilnadu. Further, while I thought that necrophiliacs would be more common in foreign countries, I was shocked to read about one such criminal in Trichy, who dug up bodies out of graveyards for his fantasy. It made all the more sense to make a film on the topic, considering how unaware we are about the existence of such a big problem,” he further explains.
Apart from creating awareness about Necrophilia, Sherief says that his aim was to also convey a message against perpetrators getting away with crimes proclaiming diagnosis of psychological disorders. “Even in the notorious Dhasvanth case, in which he burnt a 3-year-old child to death, the defence tried to close the case with the “psychological disorder’ argument. I strongly believe that psychological issues have become an easy excuse for people to get away with the horrifying crimes that they commit, and that should not be the case,” he says.
After successfully completing his debut film, Sherief elaborates his plans for the future. “Of course, I want to work with all the big stars. I am a big fan of Vijay sir. I also want to work with Rajinikanth sir, and I have a unique character penned for him,” he shares. While he is unsure about his next at the moment, he is sure about one thing. “No matter whom I work with, I want to give them memorable films, and I think I have achieved that with Ranam,” he concludes.