Chicken may be just food for most people, but raising the perfect show chicken is an all-consuming passion for some. CMT is teaming up with Emmy Award-winning Motto Pictures, also this year's Sundance Grand Jury Prize (U.S. Documentary) Winner for Weiner, and Emmy nominated director Nicole Lucas Haimes for Chicken People, a feature length documentary that follows the trials and tribulations, hopes and fears of those who breed poultry for competition on the high stakes national chicken show circuit. In the tradition of Spellbound, Chicken People is a delightfully poignant feature documentary about the fascinating world of competitive chickens and the people who love them.
In a world where a bent feather can mean a broken dream, Chicken People begins at the Ohio National Poultry Show where each November, exotic poultry breeders from across America come to Columbus, Ohio with the goal of winning the title of Grand Champion. Considered the Westminster of chickens, the OPNS features 10,000 chickens in competition and among them are the film's three main characters -- Brian Knox, a successful engineer of high performance race engines from New Hampshire Shari McCollough, a homemaker and mother of five from Crawford, Indiana and Brian Caraker, a musical theater star from Branson, Missouri.
Over the course of a year, Chicken People follows these competitors in their shared, all consuming passion to raise the perfect chicken. The film tracks their progress -- as contestants and in the challenges in their lives -- richly illustrating the deep character and charming nature of their passion for poultry. The film explores how their daily lives intersect with their flocks of birds and how they change and grow as people due to their passion for their chickens. Along the journey, Brian K, Brian C and Shari struggle to overcome life's obstacles and together face a nationwide outbreak of the Avian Flu that results in the unprecedented shutdown of the OPNS for the season.
Chicken People are a growing segment of our population. These are people who love and care for their chickens -- some who even dress their chickens in diapers and treat their chickens like a part of the family. The result is a feathered, deeply sincere, heartfelt and uplifting Best in Show that highlights the joys of raising animals.
