Chicken for Linda!

Chicken for Linda! (Linda veut du poulet !, 2023) is a French-Italian animated musical you can watch online on iFILM. The feature debut of Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach runs a brisk 73 minutes and is drawn in flat blocks of color, each character marked by a single bright shade.

Paulette punishes her eight-year-old daughter Linda for something she didn't do, then realizes her mistake. To make amends she promises to cook chicken with peppers, the dish Linda's late father once made. Two snags: Paulette can't really cook, and a citywide strike has shut every shop. That small promise spirals into a neighborhood-wide hunt for a bird, roping in an aunt, the neighbors, a cop, and one very alive chicken on the loose.

Winner of the Crystal for Best Feature at Annecy, the film slips real grief in under the slapstick and songs, which is exactly what most family animation skips. Funny, tender, and quietly about a missing dad. Stream Chicken for Linda! online on iFILM.