Seeing Red: How an iPhone 16 Pro Max brought a dark comedy to life

The Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) continues its mission to make filmmaking accessible to all with “MAMI Select: Filmed on iPhone,” showcasing emerging talent across India. This year’s selection includes Seeing Red, a darkly comedic short film directed by Shalini Vijayakumar, which premiered at PVR Lido in Mumbai and was shot entirely on an iPhone 16 Pro Max – a testament to the evolving possibilities of mobile storytelling.

Seeing Red centres on three women who are haunted by a ghost visible only to them while their family remains blissfully unaware. This premise unfolds into a clever satire of patriarchal norms in 1980s India, blending wit, dark humor, and a subtle message of female empowerment. The film is one of four standouts chosen for the MAMI Select initiative, highlighting diverse voices from across the country.

The visual aesthetic is striking. Ms. Vijayakumar masterfully utilizes the iPhone’s camera to create a warm, earthy palette dominated by ochres, maroons, and muted greens – reflecting the gritty realism of a middle-class South Indian household. Low-key lighting and eye-level shots foster a sense of intimacy and equality between viewer and subject, while capturing rich background detail that grounds the narrative in its specific context.

She leverages the iPhone’s computational photography capabilities, including its sensor-shift stabilisation, ProRes recording, and cinematic mode, to create this distinctive aesthetic. The deliberate choice to eschew traditional filmmaking equipment highlights both the accessibility and potential of mobile technology in cinematic creation.

Speaking after the premiere, Ms. Vijayakumar revealed the film’s genesis: drawing inspiration from her mother’s childhood stories — particularly a memorable tale about an uncle who could communicate with ghosts — she sought to create a work rooted in personal experience and cultural memory. 

She subverts a common trope of Tamil cinema, the “mass shot” (typically used for dramatic hero entrances and often rendered in high-frame-rate 4K), by employing it ironically to underscore the women’s vulnerability and fear – a deliberate visual commentary on power dynamics. For tighter compositions demanding precision, Ms. Vijayakumar utilized the iPhone’s 120mm equivalent lens, meticulously controlling narrative elements within each frame.

Veteran filmmaker Vetri Maaran mentored Vijayakumar, offering crucial guidance that refined the script’s realism and thematic resonance. His suggestion to replace a character initially conceived as an upper-caste Hindu priest with an outsider tasked with exorcising the ghost amplified the film’s underlying message of social commentary.

‘MAMI Select: Filmed on iPhone’ represents more than just a technical demonstration; it’s a platform for diverse narratives and disruptive filmmaking practices, proving that compelling stories can emerge from unexpected tools. Ms. Vijayakumar hopes audiences will simply engage with the experience, a sentiment encapsulating the film’s playful yet poignant spirit. 

Seeing Red is one of four standout films chosen for this year’s ‘MAMI Select: Filmed on iPhone’ initiative to showcase emerging Indian filmmakers and their linguistic, regional, and narrative diversity. The 2025 lineup also features Amrita Bagchi’s Tinctoria (Hindi): A psychological thriller about fashion, ghosts, and colonial guilt; Rohin Raveendran Nair’s Kovarty (Malayalam): A magical realist romance in the Alleppey backwaters; Chanakya Vyas’s Mangya (Marathi): A coming-of-age tale about grief, a boy, and his rooster.

All four used the iPhone 16 Pro Max and the M4 Max-powered MacBook Pro to shoot, edit, and push visual boundaries.