MEN & CHICKEN

"If Franz Kafka had ever devised a film for the Three Stooges, it might look something like Men & Chicken … a joyously eccentric, darkly comic fairytale." – Screen Daily

Upon learning that their recently deceased dad wasn't their biological father, socially awkward half-brothers Gabriel (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's David Dencik) and Elias (a delightfully against-type Mads Mikkelsen) go in search of their real shared parent, a scientist named Evelio Thanatos. They track him to a sprawling, derelict sanatorium on the remote island of Ork, but instead of meeting the reclusive patriarch they discover three other half-brothers – Søren Malling (also in this year's A War), Nicolas Bro and Nikolaj Lee Kaas – each with a harelip and a penchant for madcap violence. Brought together by accident, the five unwilling siblings soon uncover a family secret that will bind them together by choice.

Former Oscar winner and regular Susanne Bier screenwriter (After the Wedding, MIFF 2007) Anders Thomas Jensen returns with his first directorial effort in 10 years (his last film at MIFF was The Green Butchers in 2004): a wildly unhinged black comedy that mines deep veins of absurdist slapstick and philosophical profundity. Winning Jensen the Best Director award at Fantastic Fest, it's a hysterically bizarre, unclassifiable oddity.

"Beginning with the glowing good cheer of a fairytale, but quick to reveal the sinister social satire that undermines its misleadingly whimsical opening narration, Men & Chicken … in its own playful way, [is a] tonally astounding, genre-confounding movie." – Variety