A short film titled Seeing Red, showcased at the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) Film Festival, is at the centre of a plagiarism and appropriation row after author and journalist Jeyarani alleged that it borrows heavily from one of her short stories without permission or credit. Shalini Vijayakumar, who directed the film under the mentorship of acclaimed filmmaker Vetrimaaran, has denied the allegations.
According to Jeyarani, Seeing Red bears striking resemblance to her story Sevvarali Poocharam, featured in her anthology Senilam published in December 2024. Drawn from her own lived experience, the story highlights the caste and gender-based violence women face under the guise of pariharam (ritual remedy).
In Sevvarali Poocharam, men of a village blame women for their misfortunes, such as fires in the fields, and accuse them of supernatural possession. Under the guise of exorcism, the women are whipped, their screams deemed “proof” of possession. One woman ultimately resists, turning the ritual violence back on the men.
Jeyarani has alleged that Seeing Red follows a similar trajectory, but shifts the story into a dominant caste setting. Unfolding in a Brahmin household during the same time period, the film follows two women and a young girl who see the ghost of a woman clad in a red madisar saree — a caste marker specific to Brahmin women. The patriarch of the family is shown engaging in caste segregationist practices multiple times, and the women are alleged to be possessed by the ghost as punishment for their moral transgressions. A lowered-caste exorcist, also wielding a whip, is summoned amid the patriarch’s protests about his “impurity.” Ultimately, the ghost appears to give the women the courage to turn the tables.
This ‘adaptation,’ according to Jeyarani, not only borrows heavily from her work without permission, but also distorts its core message. “I grew up witnessing the oppression of working-class women from rural marginalised castes suppressed in the name of various social, religious, cultural (often superstitious) beliefs and rituals. As a journalist, l've reported about many such injustices during my field work.” Among them, she said, practices such as spirit possession and ritual trance (pey pidithal and saami aaduthal) continue to be imposed as overwhelming pressures on these women's lives.
But “in all my fieldwork, I have never come across any accounts of Brahmin women being possessed and subjected to whipping like marginalised women. I have neither witnessed nor read anything of that kind,” she added. She also alleged that portraying a non-Brahmin exorcist whipping Brahmin women was “a glaring historical falsehood.”
In a detailed statement shared online, Jeyarani said she was devastated to watch the film after a friend pointed it out. “Not only had every inch of it been stolen, down to the title (‘Sevvarali Poocharam’ - Red Oleander Flower string), the period and the genre, but it had also been distorted and appropriated through a Brahminical lens,” she wrote. “Likewise, the heroine of my story, Senbhagam, had her gait (including her distinctive hand-clicking gesture), her signature look and make up copied, and used to construct the madisar-clad ghost character.”
“As a child, I was deeply affected by seeing my mother and other women in my village subjected to exorcism rituals. I cried helplessly, unable to bear the sight. That memory remains etched in my heart like a stone,” she said.
Jeyarani said she wrote Sevvarali Poocharam to “release the weight” from her memory and to question such rituals. “But that relief did not last even for a few months,” she said.
Jeyarani also raised concerns about the response of director and producer Vetrimaaran, who is credited as a mentor on the film. “When I contacted him about this, he said he would read the story but even after a week, he claims he hasn't read it. It's possible he didn't know the story was stolen,” she said.
“What surprises me,” she added, “is the complete lack of social awareness among those associated with the film — whether Brahmin women face such systemic cultural oppression, or whether the film is, in fact, appropriating the pain and suffering of women from marginalised communities.”
Jeyarani also called for the immediate removal of Seeing Red from all platforms, a public apology from director Shalini Vijayakumar, and for MAMI to revoke its selection of the film. “Plagiarism is a personal crime,” she stated. “But distortion and appropriation of a narrative is a social crime, a historical injustice.”
Shalini Vijayakumar, meanwhile, has denied any wrongdoing. “Seeing Red is an entirely original work,” she told TNM. “Any resemblance to other stories is purely coincidental.” While acknowledging that appropriation and story theft are valid concerns in the creative industry, she said she stands by the integrity of her process and the authenticity of the film.
Neither MAMI nor director Vetrimaaran has made a public statement regarding the allegations. Seeing Red was released on YouTube on April 15 and has since garnered over 547K views.