Malayalam Vampire Thriller 'Half' Heads to Toronto's Midnight Madness with International Sales Attached
A Malayalam-language vampire revenge thriller called Half will make its world premiere in Toronto's Midnight Madness section this September, with Brussels-based sales agent Best Friend Forever already attached to handle international rights outside India.
The deal, reported by Deadline on 10 August 2026, puts a Kerala-produced genre film in front of the global buyers who circulate through the Toronto International Film Festival each autumn. Midnight Madness, TIFF's late-night showcase for genre cinema, has historically been a launchpad for action and horror titles that travel well beyond their home markets.
Half follows twin half-blooded vampires, played by Ranjith Sajeev and Aiswarya Raj, who wage war with desert highway hijackers. The cast also includes Abbas, Amala Paul, and Srikanth Muruli. Samjad directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Praveen Viswanath; the pair previously made the 2024 Malayalam psychological mystery-thriller Golam, which streamed on Amazon Prime.
The action design sets Half apart from typical regional genre fare. Choreographer Very Tri Yulisman — whose credits include The Raid 2 and The Night Comes for Us — spent months training the cast to perform their own stunts and built custom camera rigs to shoot fight sequences in-camera, meaning the action is captured on set rather than heavily augmented by digital effects in post-production.
Fragrant Nature Film Creations, based in Kerala, produced the film. The banner's credits include the 2011 Mohanlal-starrer Pranayam and the 2024 Sufi-themed romantic drama Qalb. Anne Sajeev and Sajeev P.K. serve as producers.
In India, Excel Entertainment will present and distribute Half across North India in association with AA Films. For Excel — the banner co-founded by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani — this marks its first collaboration with the Malayalam film industry, a signal that Hindi-language distributors are increasingly picking up regional-language films for wider theatrical rollout.
Best Friend Forever, co-founded by Martin Gondre and Charles Bin, specialises in arthouse titles for the international market. The company's Toronto slate also includes Elephants in the Fog, a Cannes Un Certain Regard prize winner screening in TIFF's Centrepiece sidebar. Its current sales catalogue features Blaise, which won the Annecy Grand Prix Contrechamp and a Fantasia award, and Nina Roza, which took the Berlinale Silver Bear for Best Screenplay. Animated titles Chimney Town: Frozen in Time and Papaya round out the slate.
For a Malayalam genre film, landing a Midnight Madness slot alongside an international sales agent and a North India distribution deal before its premiere is an unusually wide launch configuration. Most regional Indian films secure theatrical windows at home first, with international sales following festival exposure. Half arrives with all three pieces in place before a single public screening.
