Late last year, tigress Avni had many wildlife lovers up in arms against a shoot-at-sight order on her. She’d supposedly turned a man-eater, killing over 13 humans. Avni’s plight brought to light the dichotomy of man’s relationship with the wild animals. While, on the one hand, so much is being spoken about tiger conservation, man-animal conflict is becoming a bigger debate by the day.
It is this aspect that director
Dharani Dharan has come up with for his film starring
Sibiraj
in the lead. Titled
Shiva, the film, says Dharan, “is about the many incidents that we keep hearing about. I took inspiration from this and wrote a script. I felt Sibiraj will play the role of a forest officer well. His character is of an animal lover who has studied the subject well before taking up this post. But he comes across a man-eating tiger in his location, who kills several people. And things roll from there.”
The film has
Ramya Nambeesan as the female lead. “Sibi and Ramya have earlier worked together and their chemistry worked very well. So, I decided to cast them again. It is an emotional subject. We speak a lot about tiger conservation and, while I’ve taken inspiration from actual incidents, the film will be a lot more than these. We will begin shooting from April, in and around Kerala and Tamil Nadu border. We delve into man-animal conflict and how we humans get into their space for building resorts and other recreational activities. So, in that sense, there will be a message, too,” he adds. Bankrolled by Kaviya Mahesh, the film will have VFX, too.