Short film about beef farmer’s vegan conversion wins a Bafta

A SHORT film about a Derbyshire farmer who sent his cattle to a sanctuary instead of a slaughterhouse has won a Bafta award.

The documentary, 73 Cows, tells the story of Ashbourne farmer Jay Wilde and his struggles with his conscience and the farming industry.

The 15-minute Best Short Film winner at the 2019 Bafta Awards premiered at the 2018 Raindance Film Festival and has been watched worldwide nearly 130,000 times.

The film, by Alex Lockwood, tells how Jay inherited his father’s Bradley Nook Farm – but not his father’s stomach for sending the cows to their death.

He realised something had to change and found a sanctuary willing to take his herd while he planned to create a vegan farm in its place.

Locals called it the “funny farm”, but Jay was supported by wife Katja, who arrived in 2006 and decided to spend two months sampling rural life in England.

Since his cows moved to Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Norwich, Katja says Jay has become much more likely to talk about his feelings, while she is no longer “terribly stressed”.

She said she could see him “trapped in the situation” and how it was “absolutely destroying him”.

In a shortoftheweek.com review, critic Jason Sondhi wrote: “Jay is dying a spiritual death and the torment is remarkably, nakedly, etched on his face in every frame...

“Better than almost any documentary I’ve seen, [the film] captures the moral weight of its action.”

The Bafta awards ceremony was held at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday night, February 10.