A Malayalam-language vampire action thriller called Half has been selected for the Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness programme, and Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar's Excel Entertainment has boarded the film to present and distribute it in Hindi across North India, in association with AA Films (Variety).

Midnight Madness is TIFF's late-night slot for genre films — horror, action, cult fare — where programmers look for films that can work up a sweating, cheering room. Half follows two half-blooded vampires on a violent hunt, blending high-speed road chases with a revenge plot built on vampire lore. The film was made without any slow-motion sequences, a deliberate choice that signals the filmmakers' commitment to a hard, fast rhythm (Variety).

For Excel Entertainment, the banner behind Hindi hits like Dil Chahta Hai and Don, this marks its first release from the Malayalam-language film industry — the South Indian sector centred in Kerala that has produced a string of crossover successes in recent years. The Hindi-language rights deal pairs Excel with AA Films, a distributor that has handled wide North Indian releases for regional-language titles before.

Half is produced by Fragrant Nature Film Creations, a company founded in 2010 that entered the industry with the Mohanlal starrer Pranayam. The film reunites the banner with director Samjad and writer Praveen Viswanath, the team behind the 2024 Malayalam mystery Golam. Samjad directs from a screenplay he co-wrote with Viswanath. Producers are Anne Sajeev and Sajeev P.K. (Variety).

The cast is led by Ranjith Sajeev and Aiswarya Raj, with Abbas and Amala Paul in supporting roles. Action choreographer Very Tri Yulisman — whose credits include The Raid 2 and The Night Comes for Us — coached Sajeev and Raj so the two leads could perform their own stunts. Yulisman's background in Indonesian martial-arts cinema brings a particular physical vocabulary to the film: close-quarters combat, long takes, minimal cuts (Variety).

Production ran 117 days across three countries: the deserts of Rajasthan, the hill country of Kerala, and snow-covered landscapes in Kazakhstan. The crew includes Indian National Film Award winners Mahesh Bhuvanend as editor, Mohandas as production designer, and Vishnu Govind as sound designer. Cinematography is by Pappinu; the score comes from composer Midhun Mukundan (Variety).

The film carries the tagline "The Chronicles of Two Half-Blooded Vampires," revealed with its second poster (Planet Bollywood). It is set to release in five languages: Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, and Kannada, covering the major Indian-language markets (Variety).

Fragrant Nature Film Creations has also indicated on its official Instagram that Half is streaming on Amazon Prime, though that post is undated and the Toronto festival selection and Hindi distribution deal represent the most current confirmed developments (Instagram).

For genre fans, the TIFF Midnight Madness selection is the headline. The festival runs each September in Toronto and functions as both a premiere platform and a market where acquisition executives scout films for wider release. A genre film from Kerala landing that slot — and picking up Hindi distribution before the festival even begins — puts Half on a wider radar than most Malayalam productions reach.