György Pálfi’s ‘Hen’ Asks Us: What If Humans Are the Side Characters? (Exclusive San Sebastian Trailer)

The Hollywood Reporter can exclusively unveil the trailer for György Pálfi’s Hen, premiering at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival.

Hungarian director-writer Pálfi is best known for his debut feature Hukkle (2002), surrealist film Taxidermia (2006) and experimetal piece Final Cut – Ladies and Gentleman (2012), as well as 2014’s Freefall and 2018’s His Master’s Voice.

His latest work, Hen, earned its world premiere at TIFF and now arrives at the Spanish festival to make its European premiere on Wednesday in the fest’s Zabaltegi Tabakalera section.

Produced by Pallas Film and View Master Films, the movie follows a hen who, after escaping from a chicken farm, finds refuge in the courtyard of a crumbling restaurant. There, she discovers love, confronts the pecking order, and fights to protect her eggs from a greedy owner. Her droll yet touching quest for motherhood mirrors the messy compromises and silent struggles of human lives.

“The story is multi-layered, like a hologram, showing the same picture in different planes and dimensions, through two different fates. One is the life of a hen, the other of a man,” said Pálfi, whose films all feature animals. “Of course, the two are interdependent, intertwined and, although driven by different goals and motivations, inseparable. The smallness and peace of the hen’s existence meets in this film a tragedy of human lives in the midst of a global problem.”

“In the film Hen,” he continued, “I played with the idea of what happens when the human story is not at the centre. What if we humans are the ‘side thread’ in the story?” He added: “One of the biggest challenges of making this movie was deciding to work with real animals, not using CGI or AI to create them. This is an organic chicken movie.”

Lucky Number are handing international sales for Hen. Watch the trailer below.

The San Sebastian International Film Festival 2025, running Sept. 19-27, boasts a wealth of big premieres including James Vanderbilt’s Nuremburg, Edward Berger’s Ballad of a Small Player and Alice Winocour’s Couture with Angelina Jolie. Hollywood star Jennifer Lawrence is set to pick up the fest’s Donostia Award later this week.