A Dairy Story

A Dairy Story screens at Plymouth Arts Cinema on Friday 25 September, starting at 8:30pm. It's a documentary by Ian Finlay, and the one showing here is the UK release from 2025, running 78 minutes.

The film follows Wilma and David Finlay of Rainton Farm in southwest Scotland, who walked away from conventional farming to make theirs the first in Europe to prove a cow-with-calf dairy system could work on a commercially viable scale. There are around 7,000 dairy farms in the UK, and the Finlays' approach sits apart from the norm. The documentary traces how changing that one system changes everything: the lives of the animals, the wellbeing of the farmers, and the future of dairy farming itself.

On screen, you'll see farmer David Finlay of Rainton Farm and Anthony Field, Head of Compassion in World Farming UK. The film has been around the festival circuit across the UK, Ireland and the US, picking up a fair few awards along the way: the Louis Marcus Award for Best Documentary and the Audience Award at the IndieCork Film Festival 2025, and a Special Commendation at the Ramsgate International Film & TV Festival 2026. Director Ian Finlay and producer Lorna Young have led Q&A sessions with the film, and screenings are often followed by panels with farmers and animal-welfare figures.

It's a 78-minute documentary, so it's a relatively tight watch. The screening is at Plymouth Arts Cinema on Friday 25 September at 8:30pm.