Gkids announced that it will bring the hand-painted animated drama-comedy Chicken For Linda! (Linda veut du poulet) to select theatres nationwide. The film will be released in New York City starting 5 April at the Angelika Film Center, in Los Angeles starting 12 April at the Laemmle Royal and select additional theatres nationwide starting 15 April in its original French language.
The critically acclaimed feature recently won the César and Lumières Award for Best Animated Feature. It was an official Cannes selection in the ACID program and following a sold-out work-in progress session at the 2022 Annecy International Film Festival, it went on to win the Annecy Grand Cristal in 2023. The film was also awarded both the Grand Prize and Audience Award at last year’s Animation is Film Festival.
The film is directed by husband-and-wife team Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach, who work together frequently on both live action and animation productions. Malta maintains a body of work primarily in live-action filmmaking and is best known for her feature Simple Women (co-wrote with Laudenbach). Acclaimed short filmmaker Laudenbach is best known for his Annecy Jury Prize-winning feature debut The Girl Without Hands.
The official synopsis reads: Paulette feels guilty after unjustly punishing her daughter Linda and would do anything to make it up to her. Linda immediately asks for a meal of chicken with peppers, which reminds her of the dish her father used to make. But with a general strike closing stores all across town and pushing people into the streets, this innocent request quickly leads to an outrageous series of events that spirals out of control, as Paulette does everything she can to keep her promise and find a chicken for Linda.
Directors Malta and Laudenbach unleash a unique visual marvel of hand-painted animation with bright, colour-blocked characters, and a story that is a blend of slapstick comedy, musical, and family drama, as Paulette and Nina ultimately confront the grief of an unspoken tragedy, and the meal that could finally bring them closer together.