Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s strand in which, each fortnight, we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track… So, we’re going to do the hard work for you.
We’re in the UK this week spotlighting an environmental documentary about warring neighbors that is gaining big traction. With a U.S. premiere coming shortly, Derek vs Derek has taken years to get to the big screen. Its exec producer Adam Wishart sets out its journey below.
Name: Derek vs Derek
Country: UK
Producer: The Slate Works
Distributor: CAT&Docs
For fans of: Wilding
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Many years in the making, Derek vs Derek started life as a story of rewilding and arrived in cinemas as something quite different, a “universal” tale of warring neighbors who nevertheless never stop learning from each other, says the film’s exec producer, Adam Wishart.
The low-budget British documentary is riding on a high and is about to screen in the U.S. for the first time, but its journey to the big screen has been long and winding.
The movie follows two neighboring farmers in Devon, enjoyably both called Derek, one of whom, Derek Gow, is a rewilding conservationist, and the other, Derek Banbury, an intensive dairy farmer. Both have a natural distrust of their namesake, but are just about willing to hear them out.
Wishart, a BAFTA nominee for the BBC and Apple TV’s fantastic 9/11: Inside the President’s War Room, lives in Devon, a short journey from Gow’s farm. He became aware of Gow and his work some time ago when he was advising on community regeneration.
Joss Barratt
Wishart was told a director, James Dawson, had been following Gow for some years in order to make a rewilding documentary similiar to 2023 hit Wilding. He “tried to get the film commissioned and even used every piece of TV industry capital I had,” but Wishart kept running into brick walls. He felt something was missing.
“I was supportive [of Dawson’s vision], but a little sceptical,” says Wishart. “Then he told me that, whenever he stayed with Derek Gow, Derek would point him towards the Banburys and tell him to go and have breakfast with them. Suddenly, it became apparent that there was a lovely film about their relationship and their two different visions.”
Wishart knew this was more than a kernel of an idea and Dawson already had plenty footage, but funding was tricky to come by. In the end, money flowed in via a grant from the Redford Center foundation plus crowdfunding. “We’ve made it with a tiny budget, drawing favors from across the industry, with the whole endeavour held together by sticky back plastic and paperclips,” says Wishart, whose production house The Slate Works produced Derek vs Derek with CAT&Docs handling international sales. While “getting documentaries off the ground has always been difficult,” Wishart notes that “it’s harder than ever to do something that doesn’t have an obvious hook – an anniversary, a major event or a famous celebrity.”
Testing the protagonist
Joss Barratt
The doc sees the Dereks execute their opposing visions while going about their day-to-day lives. Gow is a rewilder who is taking drastic measures like introducing wild boars to his farmland, and he wants to go even further by convincing locals to allow wolves to return to the UK. Banbury is a traditional farmer who is really about making ends meet. Slowly, and at times with great drama, their outlooks move closer towards each other, and Derek vs Derek by no means takes sides.
Wishart feels the key to the doc’s success is really in the protagonists’ relationship and their individual characters, which he describes as “brilliant and rather archetypal, but also unexpected.”
“There aren’t many documentaries about people like them,” he adds. “We live in such a polarized world that we assume two people with opposing views are going to fall out over every aspect of their lives and never speak again. But it’s perfectly possible to disagree about one aspect of your life and still call your neighbor if your tractor gets stuck.”
Speaking a few weeks after the launch of Tom Cruise-starring satirical polemic Digger, Wishart feels docs and features about this subject matter have become overly preachy.
“They make one group of people feel that their life choices are wonderful, while alienating another group,” he adds. “I thought [Derek vs Derek] was interesting because making a film that sits with only one protagonist can be problematic. It can feel like an ‘NGO film’ or piece of advocacy without much edge. The protagonist isn’t really being tested.”
Gow and Banbury are now pals, and Wishart speaks to them frequently, with the pair appearing on Q&A panels around the country to support the movie. Wishart says the movie has made around £120,000 ($160,000) so far. According to the BFI, ticket sales for Derek vs Derek rose 114% week-on-week after launch. The movie has aired at festivals including in Thessaloniki and Zurich and will soon be given its U.S. premiere at New York’s Doc NY.
While Wishart is “not betting my mortgage on it,” he says “if the film can find a wider audience” by perhaps picking up U.S. distribution, thereby “beginning conversations about how we relate to the natural world and the food system, then more power to it.”
That, he thinks, is the beauty of Derek vs Derek, a “universal” story of grumpy neighbors that could maybe, whisper it, teach audiences a thing or two without them even realizing it.
