The Chicken won the best short film award at Maxfest Festival of Audiovisual Arts, taking place in Massafra, Italy, 12-19 October. The award explanation says the film ‘uses simple language and evocative power to successfully show in only a few minutes the entire range of human emotions, from a child’s delicacy to the cruelty of war’. The film also won the Grand Prix at the 12th Mediterranean Short Film Festival of Tanger, Morocco, taking place 13-18 October, among 56 short films from 19 Mediterranean countries. At the International Short Film Festival of Cyprus, The Chicken won the second place for best short film because of its ‘light humor and thrilling suspense (that) are the result of a balanced script, fine actors' direction and a creative dialogue between camera work and off screen sound’, said the jury in explanation.

The action takes place in Sarajevo under seige in 1993, and speaks about a six-year-old girl Selma who gets a chicken from her father as a birthday present. The film was written and directed by Una Gunjak, director of photography was Matthias Pilz, editor Anja Siemens, and composer Bernd Schurer. The producer is Jelena Goldbach with the German production company Zak Film Productions, and Siniša Juričić from Nukleus film is the Croatian co-producer. The film was co-funded by the Croatian Audiovisual Centre.

The Chicken was recently nominated for the European Film Award in the best short film category. The winner will be announced at the award ceremony, 13 December in Riga.

High resolution still images from the film can be downloaded on this link.

Title photos: Una Gunjak; scene from the film