Chennai, Mar 18 (IANS): One of Tamil cinema's most admired directors, the multiple award-winning Vetri Maaran, described his assistant director and nephew, Mathi Maaran, who turns director with his upcoming campus action thriller 'Selfie', as a man with a lot of self-respect.

Participating in an event to release the audio and trailer of the film at the Prasad lab in Chennai on Thursday, Vetri Maaran disclosed that his former assistant director was actually a relative.

"Mathi Maaran is my nephew and his dad was the one who gave me the name Vetri Maaran. His dad, my uncle, likes the name Maaran. So, he called me Vetri Maran and named his son Mathi Maaran," the director reminisced.

He added: "Mathi Maaran is a man with a lot of self-respect. He is someone who does not believe in short-cuts. I say this because when he announced his decision to join films, his family told him to first complete all the arrear papers he had in college before moving on to films. He had a lot of pending papers, but he cleared all of them in one stroke.

"He did not use the fact that he was my nephew to ask me for an opportunity to join my team as assistant director. Instead, he worked with another director and then went on to make a short film. He showed me the short film. I found it to be good and chose him to join my team of assistant directors." Vetri Maaran disclosed.

Stating that he had already seen the film 'Selfie', which features G.V. Prakash and director Gautham Vasudev Menon in the lead, Vetri Maaran said it had raw energy and he liked it.

The director also recalled Mathi Maaran's contribution as assistant director during the making of 'Aadukalam', which won six National Film Awards. The post-production work of that film was a tedious, difficult and long-drawn process, which went on for almost nine months. Mathi Maaran's contribution to the process was immense.