Amidst the latest rise in socially conscious horror movies, Shehroze Khan throws his hat into the ring with the short film Leave Me Alone, a haunting tale of generational trauma starring Kiran Sonia Sawar (Murdered By My Father (2016), Black Mirror). 

Infusing the gothic tradition with South Asian folklore, the film follows photographer Izzy Chowdry as she takes a job at a remote stately home. Unable to communicate with her Urdu-speaking host and still reeling from a miscarriage and grappling with her sense of identity, Izzy is left increasingly lonely and vulnerable. But something else is lurking, a malevolent spirit seeking retribution for the horrors of colonialism. 

The film is rooted in the legacy of British Colonial rule in India, and the tragedy that followed. Why did you choose this as the premise of your film? 

Shehroze: Izzy and I are similar in the way that I grew up quite disconnected from my heritage. I moved around quite a bit but was mostly raised in Britain. I lived in Pakistan for two years and then Abu Dhabi for 11 years. I never felt like I belonged anywhere. I started to ponder my roots and identity when I went to university — who am I really? This led me to read up on history, particularly the partition of India in 1947. My grandfather lost family members during this time, and I developed a heightened sense of appreciation for my father and everything he went through. 

During that time, a lot of children of mixed heritage were stripped from their mothers and sent back to Britain. I felt that this was one of the most horrific things you could do to a person, and there was no better way for me to tell this story than through horror.  

When you first got this script, what were your thoughts? What drew you to play this character? 

Kiran: A lot of people, especially the young, are very angry, but don’t understand what the root cause of their rage is. I think a lot of it lies within the history of colonialism. When it specifically comes to South Asian or Middle Eastern characters, we’re held to a higher standard of representing a whole group of people. Horror is an amazing genre for South Asian storytelling, or to explore the effects of colonialism, because the outer world becomes a genre that people can understand, even if the intricacies and nuances are foreign to them. 

Is that something you’ve experienced in your career, the pressure to represent every South Asian woman?  

Kiran: Yeah, massively. The last few years have been trying for that reason. I’ve refused a few projects, even back when I didn’t have a single credit to my name. My mum wears a headscarf, and so do a lot of my other family members. Projects I work on must uplift the community – not to say that we’re perfect, but I don’t want to negatively impact their lives because of a bad show. I think Muslim filmmakers and screenwriters are under such immense pressure to sit within an industry that doesn’t necessarily know what to do with them. That’s why I love shorts; it gives us the freedom to tell our own stories.  

The film employs South Asian folklore, the Churail, a vengeful female spirit. Was that a story you both grew up with, and how did those childhood associations affect how you approached the film? 

Kiran: I never thought about it before, but isn’t it interesting that monsters from folktales are so often women, and their primary victims are men? I watched the Odyssey recently and thought that the sirens were quite similar to the Churail in some ways. 

Shehroze: In a society where men have all the privileges and advantages, it feels quite cathartic that a woman can scare the living hell out of them and exact her revenge. I think there are quite a lot of stories that come from the truth, and I’m a believer in this stuff. I may not believe all the Churail sightings I was told about in my youth, but I do believe in Jinn. The process of taking this story, intrinsic to my childhood psyche and my earliest fears, and putting it into this film without having to explain the mechanics behind it, was so exciting.  

You leave the ending open to interpretation. What were your intentions in leaving it so ambiguous?  

Shehroze: We had quite a bit of back-and-forth about the ending. It was something I was struggling with during the writing process. I knew what I wanted it to emotionally feel like, but nothing was satisfying to me. In the end, I wanted it to be haunting. Izzy walks off, wearing green instead of burgundy. She’s humming in Urdu despite not speaking the language, and the doors shut behind her. Endings are particularly difficult: too vague and you isolate the audience, but too neat and it can feel cheesy.  

Kiran: I always think of twins or triplets who were separated, and the debate of nature vs nurture. I think there are bigger movements at play as to who we are as people and where we come from, regardless of how assimilated we are in modern culture. Young people are increasingly embracing their heritage, which is so brave. I remember being in school and wanting to be the same as everyone else. The ending being vague makes sense because all we know is that something in her has changed. That could be the impact of history, assimilation, or simply an act she’s putting on. We don’t know.  

A major thread throughout the film is generational trauma, and Izzy is avoidant until she’s forced to face the truth. Do you think by confronting the trauma, the cycle can be broken? 

Shehroze: I’m not sure, but I think understanding ourselves and where we came from is key. 

Watch Leave Me Alone here