Compassion in World Farming’s Global CEO, Philip Lymbery, and Norfolk farmer Rebecca Mayhew of Old Hall Farm help launch award-winning film about keeping dairy cows and their calves together.
It is the most divisive question in dairy farming: should a newborn calf be separated from its mother? A Dairy Story, an award-winning documentary about the Scottish farm that became the first in Europe to keep dairy cows and calves together at commercial scale, launches its cinema release with a special preview screening and Cinema City, Norwich, on 30 July 2026.
The screening is part of the cinema’s Green Screen programme, and the event includes a special Q&A with Philip Lymberry, Global CEO of Compassion in World Farming and renowned author, alongside Rebecca Mayhew, who runs Woodton’s Old Hall Farm. They’ll appear alongside David Finlay, the farmer at the heart of the film. The Norwich screening is the first of series, with further Q&A screenings taking place in Edinburgh, Exeter, Bath, Henley and Brighton.
A Dairy Story follows Rainton Farm in southwest Scotland, now better known as The Ethical Dairy, which pioneered cow-with-calf dairy farming at scale in the UK. Farmers David and Wilma Finlay began to question conventional practice when visitors to their farm asked why the calves were raised apart from their mothers.
“It sounds like a small change,” said farmer David Finlay, “but that one thing, leaving the calves with their mother, changes absolutely everything. It took us a long time to figure out how to make it work, and we made a lot of mistakes, but it does work, and we would never go back to separating them.”
Wilma Finlay was diagnosed with cancer as work on the film began, and her diagnosis gave the project its urgency, capturing the story of the farm’s transformation while she was well enough to take part in telling it. Wilma died in 2025.
The film arrives at a turning point for British dairy, as farmgate prices fell below the cost of production on many farms. The wider dairy trend is one of consolidation and intensification. Rainton is at the forefront of a small but growing network of farms moving in the opposite direction.
A Dairy Story won the Louis Marcus Award for Best Documentary at its world premiere at IndieCork in October 2025, and the Audience Award at its UK premiere at the Central Scotland Documentary Festival in November 2025. Last weekend it won Best Documentary Feature at Unisphere Film Festival, in New York.
Philip Lymbery, Global CEO, Compassion in World Farming, said:
“A Dairy Story shows, with honesty and heart, that a more compassionate approach to dairy farming is a working reality. Compassion in World Farming is proud to partner with a film that lets audiences see it for themselves.”
The film was made independently by producer Lorna Young and director Ian Findlay, who are releasing it through their own company, Laverock Productions.
Ahead of release, more than 1,200 people across 28 countries have pledged their support for cow-with-calf dairy on the film’s interactive pledge map at adairystory.com, with requests for screenings arriving from around the world.
For debut director Ian Findlay, capturing the story of Rainton’s transformation was about putting a window on a farm he had come to know well through photographing the herd over many years. He said:
“There are many documentaries that tell you what to think about farming. We wanted to create a film that gives audiences the space to reach their own conclusions about the separation of dairy cows and calves, and to reveal the passion and the motivations that underpin a change like this.”