CHENNAI: Journalist and writer Jeyarani has alleged that short film ‘Seeing Red’ made by Shalini Vijayakumar, which was selected under the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) Select: Filmed on iPhone initiative this year, was fully plagiarised from her short story ‘Sevvarali Poocharam’.
The work was published as part of ‘Sennilam’, a collection of Jeyarani’s short stories, in December 2024. Shalini Vijayakumar was among the four persons selected by MAMI in February and the film fully shot on iPhone had its premiere last month.
In a statement on social media on Friday, Jeyarani accused ‘Seeing Red’ of being a case of “plagiarism, Brahminical appropriation and historical distortion”. Pointing out that she was alerted by a friend on April 24 that someone had made a film out of her story, the writer said she was shocked to find that the film has been “blatantly plagiarised”.
“Not only had every inch of it been stolen, down to the title (‘Sevvarali Poocharam’ – Red oleander flower string), but it had also been distorted and appropriated through a Brahminical lens,” she said.
Shalini Vijayakumar told TNIE that she wished to state clearly and respectfully that her film was an entirely original work. “Any resemblance to other stories is purely coincidental,” she said. Shalini Vijayakumar added that while she took seriously the concerns of story theft and appropriation, she stood by the integrity of her process and the authenticity of the story in this case.
Jeyarani, who has written against casteism, communalism and patriarchy, said she wrote ‘Sevvarali Poocharam’ to release the weight from her memory after being deeply affected by seeing her mother and other women in her village subjected to exorcism rituals.
Since director Vetrimaaran was credited as a mentor for the film, Jeyarani said she reached out to him in vain. “It’s possible he didn’t know the story was stolen,” she said, adding that what truly surprised her was the “complete lack of social awareness among anyone associated with the film — whether Brahmin women, as a community, face such systemic oppression, or whether the film is, in fact, appropriating the pain and suffering of women from marginalised communities”.
Besides a public apology from Shalini Vijayakumar, she demanded that the film be not screened anywhere or made available on any platforms. She urged MAMI to revoke its selection of the film.