Maverick farmer Stephen Hook didn’t set out to become famous. But when Heike Bachelier — a customer on his milk round — suggested that a film be made about Hook and his herd of unruly cows, he was happy to oblige.

The result is ‘The Moo Man’, a gentle and charming documentary shot on the Pevensey Levels, East Sussex, England. The film screened at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for Best Documentary at the British Independent Film Awards — and this week, it screens at the Bermuda Documentary Film Festival.

“Four years ago, Heike phoned to ask if she could bring her partner Andy Heathcote to see the farm from where their milk comes, as a surprise for his birthday,” Hook said. “The surprise birthday treat went really well. I showed Heike and Andy around the farm, and they loved it! A week later, Andy phoned to see if they could pop around again, as they had a proposition they wanted to put to Phil (my dad) and I. We wondered what on earth it could be.”

Andy and Heike were soon sitting in Phil’s farmhouse kitchen. “They introduced themselves as independent film makers,” Hook said. “On their visit they so enjoyed the way we farm and our story about raw milk, that they wanted to make a film about a year on the farm. We both agreed. Andy spent the next two years filming. I would phone Andy whenever something was happening on the farm. Nothing was scripted, Andy filmed events as they occurred.

“The theme that they hadn’t expected was how strongly the cow’s characters came across in the footage. To me the finished film is simply wonderful! The shots on the marsh are breathtaking. I do find watching it an emotional roller coaster though, there is more than you would think in there as a farming year unfolds.”

Heathcote says the story evolved from its original idea. “The film was initially intended to be a story about Steve’s fight for survival and the right to sell his barely legal unprocessed raw milk,” Heathcote said. “However the story soon developed its own legs as my relationship with Steve and my understanding of farm realities developed. Filming gradually evolved into a more subtle study of what farming actually means; the ways we as humans use and domesticate animals and whether it is ever a relationship with two sides. Farm life captivated and challenged me, and two and a half years of filming on a small English dairy farm changed my own thinking in so many ways.

“I believe there is something within our DNA that forges both our attitude and our sympathies towards domestic animals. This connection to nature and animals may be emotional but it is also practical, a long evolved survival response. It is a part of who we are. Today this response is under threat. Supermarkets and the food processing industry continually disconnect us from food reality. But for most of us North Europeans, farms are the only real connection we have with nature. They are not just our food basket but our countryside too. Farms are living things; beautiful, gritty, dirty and ugly places and essential to our understanding and acceptance of the cycle of life.”

Bachelier said the film is an insight into a world that initially seems very familiar, yet in reality one that we don’t know much about.

“ ‘The Moo Man’ dives into a farming life in some ways unchanged for centuries,” she says. “It is clearly a lifestyle under threat but the Hooks seem to have found a way to survive. Our aim was to tell Steve’s story in an engaging, funny yet serious way, so allowing the audience to understand emotionally what we’re in danger of losing.

“I am convinced that touching the audience with a film is the most effective way of changing our understanding of a topic and I hope ‘The Moo Man’ will stay with audiences long after they’ve left the screen.”

‘The Moo Man’ screens at Bermuda Docs on Saturday April 19 at 2pm in the Tradewinds Auditorium of the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute. Tickets are available at www.bdatix.bm, Pulp and Circumstance-Washington Lane, Fabulous Fashions-Heron Bay Plaza, or by calling 232-2255.