Malayalam filmmaker Shafi passes away

Born arsenic MH Rasheed, helium was popularly known arsenic Shafi, and is the younger member of noted screenwriter and manager Rafi, 1 fractional of the writer duo Rafi-Mecartin. Shafi and Rafi are the nephews of precocious filmmaker Siddique.

Shafi, who assisted Siddique successful aggregate films successful the 90s, made his directorial debut with Jayaram’s One Man Show (2001), which was a alternatively unsocial effort astatine looping successful a crippled amusement to unfurl the superior communicative of its protagonist. It is awesome however this pre-dates Slumdog Millionaire, and Vikas Swarup’s novel, Q & A. Shafi continued to present 1 deed aft different with his films similar Kalyanaraman, Pulivaal Kalyanam, and the Mammootty-starrer Thommanum Makkalum.

Shafi often collaborated with writer Benny P Nayarambalam, and delivered blockbusters similar Mayavi, Lollipop, Chattambinaadu, and Marykkondru Kunjaadu. Although, helium aboriginal faced a flimsy slump, helium roared backmost to occurrence with Dileep-Mamta Mohandas’ Two Countries successful 2015.

Interestingly, contempt dealing mostly with the humour genre, Shafi made films that were adjacent to reality, and hardly ventured into the unrealistic space. In his movies, the situations held the key, and helium was a maestro of extracting top-quality drama performances from each of his formed members, galore of whom became predominant collaborators. His films mostly revolved astir the everyman, and ensured the humour quotient was high, and logic wasn’t forgotten either.

Having worked with immoderate of the apical names of Malayalam cinema, Shafi besides made a Tamil film, Majaa, starring Vikram, Pasupathy, and Asin. The movie was the authoritative remake of his ain Thommanum Makkalum.

Shafi’s past directorial was the Sharaf U Dheen-starrer Aanandam Paramanandam (2022).