The members of the Christchurch Poultry, Bantam and Pigeon Club are about to become world famous.

They're the stars of the 2017 Kiwi documentary Pecking Order, which released its first trailer on Wednesday morning.

Filmed in 2014 and 2015, Slavko Martinov's film details what it takes to be best bird at the national annual show and to be a true "chicken fancier".

Slavko Martinov In the world of "chicken showing", you're either a champion, or you get eaten, believes Pecking Order director Slavko Martinov.

READ MORE: Pecking Order - the curiously competitive world of chicken fanciers

The Christchurch filmmaker says the idea for the documentary actually started on the other side of the Tasman, when he met some women in their '60s at a Melbourne craft fair.

"They were selling this high-end, organic chicken feed. I was like, 'who buys this?', and they looked at me like I was stupid and said, 'all the top breeders on the national show circuit of course'. And I'm like, 'the what?'. Then it hit me – Best in Show – with chickens."

Slavko Martinov On show day, judges examine every inch and feather of the specially bred chickens to find the prize winners.

Martinov expected to be focusing on an Australian group, until he discovered the local Christchurch group was the oldest in New Zealand (it celebrates its 150th anniversary this year).

"I started going along to their meetings and hanging out, but I think they could sense I was an outsider: 'So, what are you into – leghorns. No you're a silky man, you're a silky man'. I'd go, 'oh yeah, I like chickens', even though they were talking another language to me."

But while club members couldn't have been more obliging, potential funding bodies and others were keen to ensure he wasn't taking advantage of them.

Supplied Slavko Martinov's last film was the Christchurch mockumentary Propaganda, which won the Grand Prize for Best Film award at the Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan.

"The first thing people like the NZ Film Commission said was 'make sure you don't make fun of these people'. And I was always like, 'that never occurred to me, that's like low-hanging fruit'. They are us – we're all obsessed about something. I loved that they were competing for something, which is fairly common – it's just that they are chickens, which at first seems bizarre. I know when you first find out about it, your brain goes 'that's just ridiculous', but in actual fact – why not?"

When asked jokingly if he was ever tempted to take a bucket of KFC along while shooting, Martinov laughs, but can't resist revealing a story that doesn't feature in the trailer.

"There's a scene in the movie where the president walks into a room with his bag of KFC and completely unselfconsciously starts munching down on it – and no one flinches. I guess it's because, in this world, you're either a champion, or you get eaten."

Supplied Pecking Order director Slavko Martinov says members of the Christchurch Poultry, Bantam and Pigeon Club couldn't have been more obliging.

Admitting that he and his crew shot a "painful amount of footage", Martinov says part of that was due to the fact they ended up witnessing potentially the biggest crisis in the club's long history.

Concerned that simply following a bird from hatchling to the national show was so obvious that someone must have done it before somewhere in the world, he had begun looking for another story arc and thought perhaps the club's meetings might provide it.

"It took the longest time for us to notice that there was some real s… going on there – long-simmering stuff. I'd say to people, 'so how competitive is it?' and they'd say, 'not much, I'm just in it to hang out with my mates'. I was thinking, 'really?'. But then we realised that was all bulls…, just a line they tell people. That applied not only to showing, but also within the club. We went to this AGM and it was clear that there was this deep-running problem in the club, which increasingly became the story."

Supplied Members of the Lilley family play a starring role in the new Kiwi documentary Pecking Order.

Despite not yet having a confirmed release date here, Pecking Order has already secured an international sales agent. Seville International's Anick Poirier was so impressed with Martinov and the rest of the Pecking Order team's pitch in winning the New Zealand Film Commission's Vista Marketing Award (she was on the judging panel) that she signed on to market the film.

Martinov says Poirier is currently at the Berlin Film Festival screening the film to potential buyers. Hopes are high of also maybe securing a slot at Toronto's Hot Docs or New York's Tribeca Film Festival in late April.

Not that Martinov has forgotten the human stars of his film.

He's keen to keep a promise to hold a special screening for the club – if they're up for it.

"It might be more interesting for them to see the response of a full theatre," Martinov says, as rumours swirl that the documentary could yet debut here at Christchurch's Isaac Theatre Royal, as part of the New Zealand International Film Festival, "but that's up to them to decide."

For more information check out Pecking Order's Facebook page.