Brothers score a first for Hmong filmmakers in U.S.

Abel and Burlee Vang have just sold the foreign rights of their first commercial feature film to Voltage Pictures, the company that produced "The Hurt Locker" and "Dallas Buyers Club." The brothers, whose parents are refugees from Laos, are likely the first Hmong filmmakers to achieve such success in the United States.

Only five years ago, the Vangs won a prestigious Nicholl Fellowship for their screenplay "Tiger's Child." That led to the production of a short called "Sentient," a film about a super-soldier cyborg.

Their new piece is a horror film, "Bedeviled."

"These five teenagers, they download this app — it's like Siri — and they use it to help them with their daily activities," Abel Vang explained. "But then it becomes menacing. It's supernatural. And it takes their worst fears and turns it against them, until they die. Basically, it's reinventing the bogeyman for today's generation."

The brothers will join local filmmakers in St. Paul Friday evening for a Hmong film festival at Metro State University, and a panel discussion at the St. Paul nonprofit In Progress this Saturday.