FrightFest to open with The Dead 2: India

Film4 FrightFest will open its 2013 edition with The Ford Brothers’ The Dead 2: India [pictured] and will close with the UK premiere of Aharon Keshales & Navot Papushado’s revenge thriller Big Bad Wolves.

The Dead 2 is the first international zombie film to shoot in India; it is directed, written and produced by UK team Howard and Jon Ford. Their original The Dead was set in Africa.

The sequel is about an India-based American engineer (Joseph Millson) who needs the help of an orphan (Anand Goyal) to reach his pregnant girlfriend (Meenu) 300 miles away during a zombie apocalypse.

They said: “It’s truly an honour to be the opening film – mind-blowing! Being at FrightFest for The Dead was such an incredible experience for us and one of the highlights of our whole journey with the film. It’s an awesome event with a brilliant crowd and we both sincerely cannot wait to see you all there!”

Big Bad Wolves, from the team behind the acclaimed Rabies, follows three men entangled in a series of brutal murders: a victim’s father, a vigilante police detective, and the main suspect.

Keshales and Papushado said today: “We always dreamt of having a film which would be good enough to be shown at FrightFest, but not even in our wildest dreams did we think that an Hebrew-language revenge thriller would get us there. FrightFest is really making history here. As a token of our appreciation we promise to give everyone there a  night they won’t easily forget”.

Film4 FrightFest Co-director Alan Jones said:  “Film4 FrightFest is delighted with our Opening and Closing Film choices. Both The Dead 2: India and Big Bad Wolves represent everything FrightFest is about; the discovery, nurturing and celebration of vital new voices in the genre. FrightFest launched the Ford Brothers’ The Dead to worldwide acclaim in 2010 and Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado’s Rabies in 2011 became the only movie in our entire 14-year history to warrant successive extra screenings based on overwhelming want-to-see demand. So to welcome both duos back with their stunning new movies, both exploring unusual cultural aspects within a remarkable genre framework is an absolute thrill. These films bookend Film4 FrightFest perfectly and hint at what we are trying to achieve this year -  the best platform to deliver our broadest, most diverse and most surprising event ever.”

FrightFest will run Aug 22-26 at the Empire Cinema in London’s Leicester Square. The full lineup will be announced on June 28.