Drafouse Films Coops Up Danish Comedy MEN & CHICKEN

We re immensely excited to announce the acquisition of Anders Thomas Jensen s Men & Chicken, which laid a golden egg in our hearts when we saw back at Berlin earlier in 2015. Jensen is a major talent, and a favorite name around the Drafthouse Films/Fantastic Fest offices for his dark and hilarious comedies like Flickering Lights, for which he frequently teams up with superstar Mads Mikkelsen (of Hannibal, some upcoming Star Wars movie, and a natural comedic talent).

Men & Chicken, which has its North American premiere at Toronto International Film Festival next week and its US premiere at Fantastic Fest later this month, is beyond the pale even for these collaborators, putting Mikkelsen behind a gnarly moustache and gnarlier hare-lip, as he and his brother (character actor David Dencik) reconnect with their estranged brothers on an isolated island homestead, behave badly, and discover outrageously horrible things about each other, themselves, and the local livestock...

Check out this early trailer for Men & Chicken and read the full press release below!

DRAFTHOUSE FILMS COOPS UP

DANISH COMEDY MEN AND CHICKEN

Outrageous black comedy starring starring Mads Mikkelsen and David Dencik

to be released theatrically nationwide in Spring 2016

AUSTIN, TEXAS Drafthouse Films has acquired North American distribution rights to Anders Thomas Jensen's bizarre familial comedy feature, Men & Chicken from LevelK, after its acclaimed North American premiere at Toronto International Film Festival.

Written and directed by Jensen, one of Denmark's most prolific cinematic voices (whose work includes the brilliant 1999 Oscar -winning short film Election Night, plus scripts for the 2010 Academy-Award Best Foreign Language Film winner In A Better World and Sony's upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower), Men & Chicken is the story of two brothers who, through meeting their long-lost family, also discover a horrible truth about themselves. On full, carnivalesque display here are Jensen's inimitable darkly comedic stylings, as can be seen in his earlier films Flickering Lights and The Green Butchers, both featuring star Mads Mikkelsen. Men & Chicken was recently announced to be on Denmark's shortlist for the Best Foreign Language category at the 2016 Oscars.

In his boldest role to date, Mikkelsen ( Hannibal, Casino Royale, The Hunt) reunites with Jensen to deliver an unforgettable and, for North American fans mostly familiar with his dramatic work, wholly unexpected comic turn as bumbling and harelipped Elias, alongside the equally against-type David Dencik (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, both The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo films) as his loathsome and harelipped brother Gabriel. Together, they venture to a sequestered island where they meet the harelipped Franz (Soren Malling, A Hijacking, Denmark's The Killing ), the harelipped Gregor (Nicolaj Lie Kaas, The Idiots, The Absent Ones) and the harelipped Josef (Nicholas Bro, Nymphomaniac, War Horse). What follows is a genre-wrenching spectacle that encapsulates all types of comedy, from grand slapstick to biting wit, coalescing in an astounding exploration of Denmark's most twisted family tree since Hamlet (Variety).

We've loved Anders's work since we first saw Flickering Lights, says Drafthouse Films COO James Emanuel Shapiro, And Adam's Apples is one of the big reasons why Fantastic Fest exists. Its exciting as a fan to work with him on his latest film. Fantastic Fest, a division of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas family, is the largest international genre film festival in the United States, and will present the US premiere of Men & Chicken later this month.

We love to be back with the family of Fantastic Fest, and to see how Alamo Drafthouse has build their brand over the years, says Men & Chicken producer Kim Magnusson. The way they handle foreign films just shows that these people love film so it was a no brainer for us to work with Drafthouse. I'm happy for the film, to be distributed by such a great company.

Men & Chicken will open in a limited theatrical release across North America in 2016. Men and Chicken has been sold to Imagine Film Distribution in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, Vertigo Media in Hungary, Film Europe S.R.O in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and Estin Film in Estonia.

Men & Chicken is a production of M&M Productions, Studio Babelsberg Motion Pictures, DCM Productions and Film i V st and was produced by Kim Magnusson, Tivi Magnusson and Peter Nadermann. It was executive produced by Joel Brandeis, Christoph Daniel, Christoph Fisser, Henning Molfenter, Marc Schmidheiny, Dario Suter, and Charlie Woebcken. The deal was negotiated by Natja Noviani Rosner from LevelK and James Emanuel Shapiro of Drafthouse films.

LINK:	http://drafthousefilms.com/blog/entry/drafthouse-films-coops-up-danish...
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