It's like Best in Show, only real … and with chickens.

The chicken-loving members of the 148-year-old Christchurch Poultry, Bantam and Pigeon Club are busy preparing for the National Show. The club's president, Doug Bain, has brought the group championship glory over the years, but is now facing off against the next generation of poultry fanciers who seem determined to knock down this award-winning cock of the walk.

Kiwi director Slavko Martinov got the idea for the documentary after hearing about competitive chicken shows at a Melbourne craft fair. When he investigated the oldest chicken group in Christchurch, he uncovered a cutthroat world of passion, obsession, power struggles and competition from people who take the world of chicken fancying as seriously as life and death.

Pecking Order provides insight into a world of peculiar personalities and low-stake power plays, where the president of a club devoted to chickens will casually eat a bucket of KFC during a meeting. In this world, you're either a champion or you're lunch.

The year's best feel-good flockumentary.

Director Slavko Martinov will be at both sessions to introduce the film and take part in a post-screening Q&A.