The Rooster

Dan is an introverted cop who lives alone with his chickens and beloved rooster, patrolling the one-man satellite police station of a small town in rural Victoria.

Dan’s life is changed forever when his childhood friend Steve, who suffers from a traumatic brain injury, changes his medication with devastating results. He exposes himself at a girls’ netball practice and the townspeople are fed up.

Dan chooses not to follow the police protocol of sectioning Steve to a psychiatric facility and instead returns Steve to his aging parents who are at the end of their tether. The next day Steve is found dead; buried in a shallow grave in the bush. Steve’s death is ruled a suicide and detectives question Dan’s decision making.

Rattled and mentally unfit to continue work, Dan hands in his gun and begins drinking, haunted by Steve and the responsibility he feels for his death. When his pet rooster is killed by a fox, Dan lets go of the fragile tether he has on his sanity. He retreats to camp out in the forest, seeking answers and isolation.

After a chance encounter with an eccentric old Hermit living deep amongst the trees, Dan suspects that this man may have been the last person to see his friend alive.