‘The man’s a psychopath when it comes to hedgerows’: Derek vs Derek, the unexpectedly heartwarming doc about farmers at war

One Devon farmer, called Derek, is committed to rewilding his land. His neighbour, also a Derek, tends cattle and crops. What happened when a film-maker decided to follow the bickering pair?

Derek Gow and Derek Banbury should hate each other. Gow is an outspoken rewilder widely credited with bringing back the beaver in England. As he returns his Devon sheep farm to wild nature, he is also breeding storks, wildcats, red-backed shrikes, glowworms and even adders to return to the countryside. Over the hedge, Banbury, his neighbour, is proud to be an intensive farmer, producing milk and beef cattle behind tightly clipped hedges.

“It’s like he’s just gone mad,” says Banbury of Gow at the start of  Derek vs Derek , an illuminating and unexpectedly funny new documentary that follows the pair over three years. “And the madness is now crossing the road on to my land.”