Can Australia make hemp work?

What a stop follows

The chain, not a hero.

Each funded stop walks seed, farm, mill, maker, buyer. The people carry it.

Farmer

I can grow it. Who will buy it?

Mill

I can process it. Is there enough volume?

Maker

I can make something. Can I get consistent material?

Buyer

I want the product. Can the chain deliver?

Town

What could this mean here?

Not a promotional film. Not a promise. A documentary. Independent films happen because people decide a story is worth seeing. Your contribution puts cameras back in the fields, on the people doing the work, and then — as we did the first time — back in the towns.

Come with us

Who is on the road

Directed, shot and edited by Darryl J. Nicke II. Sandy Naumann organises, budgets and plans the field work. Production labour is not free.

—Days to respond

Why now, and not next year

A Senate resolution dating to 1973 gives the government three months to respond to a committee report. For this one, that clock runs out at the end of 30 October 2026 (Canberra).

Three months is the convention, not the enforcement. In 2016 a Senate select committee reported on unconventional gas mining. The government answered in June 2024 — eight years later — and its answer was that, given the passage of time, a substantive response was no longer appropriate.

A question can be killed by simply outliving it. The film is the thing that keeps this one alive past its expiry date.

Next days on the road: Geelong, 21–23 September — a screen test, not a stop to fund.

What we have filmed, and what it showed

The bottleneck is not the plant. It is everything after the plant.

01 · Yorke Peninsula

You can't eat carbon Elden Oster said it to a newspaper, and it is the whole argument. A farmer cannot be paid in atmospheric goodwill. Mark Schilling could not even find anywhere to buy the seed.

02 · Deniliquin

The bales are still there On the MacDonald farm and at Tuppal Station we filmed thousands of tonnes of baled hemp with no reliable Australian buyer. Not a yield problem. A processing problem.

03 · Canberra

The record now says so Tim Schmidt spent six years getting this in front of the Senate. The committee called for processing infrastructure, plant breeding, and hempcrete in the National Construction Code.

The Advertiser front page: YOU CAN'T EAT CARBON. Elden and Jake Oster, Yorke Peninsula, 2024. — Elden and Jake Oster, Yorke Peninsula, 2024. Filmed.

A soil pit dug under an industrial hemp crop on the Bruce MacDonald farm, Deniliquin. — Soil pit under hemp, MacDonald farm, Deniliquin, Feb 2025. Filmed.

A builder explaining hempcrete construction at Tocumwal. — Tocumwal hempcrete short — the model for every stop. Published.

Where your money goes · the route

Fund one stop, not one film.

This film has been self-funded. It is financed the way the crop is: leg by leg. Every stop that gets funded gets shot, and produces a short film and a field note for the town it was shot in — published while the road continues, not held for release day. A stop that does not get funded does not get shot. That is the whole mechanism. A stop is a working envelope of A$18,000–$30,000 — regional at the low end, interstate at the high end, Geelong in the band. Those books are linked under Fund a whole stop. They are envelopes, not quotes.

01

Tasmania — Tim Schmidt

A hemp farmer's life, and an industry he built in Tasmania from almost nothing. Seed is still hard to buy. A bale is still hard to sell. The tour starts where he lives the blockage.

Status: planned · premise chapter

$0 To shoot this stop

02

Yorke Peninsula — Schilling, Oster, Muir

The breeding question: can Australian dryland hemp deliver stem, grain, or both, without waiting on a northern day-length? John Muir is supplying the seed. Trials are running now.

Status: partly filmed · trials still to shoot

$0 To finish this stop

03

Deniliquin — the MacDonald family, Tuppal Station

They grew it. The bales have no buyer. Processing, not acreage, is the missing join — and a path to market has to physically reach a farm gate.

Status: family filmed · crop and market still to shoot

$0 To finish this stop

04

New South Wales to Broome — Crittenden, Liyan Foundation

Simon Crittenden builds hemp panels in NSW and ships them to Broome for homes organised with Victor Hunter of Liyan Foundation, for an Aboriginal community. Filming this chapter proceeds only with community consent, on the community's terms and timeline.

Status: planned · conditional on consent

$0 To shoot this stop

05

Western Australia — hemp operations

Broome does not close the question. Another coast, the same unanswered market. The test returns, which is how the film ends without pretending to have solved anything.

Status: planned · closing chapter

$0 To shoot this stop

The land is the ledger · so is this

What a stop actually costs

Production labour is not free. Each stop pays a small field unit, the road costs, and the edit that turns the week into a public short.

Line item	Per stop
One stop, delivered: feature footage + one short + one field note	$0

Post-production, colour, sound mix and music for the finished 75–90 minute feature are costed separately and are being raised through a single-picture finishing partner, not from this page. Final cut stays with the director.

The Hemp Road Trip, 2017. Best Documentary, CannaBus Culture Film Festival, 2018.

This has worked before

The previous film didn’t just document a movement.

Darryl J. Nicke II directed The Hemp Road Trip (2017) — Best Documentary, CannaBus Culture Film Festival, 2018 — 10 Days Abroad: Albania — Best Editing, Florence Film Awards, 2020 — and Hemp: Eat Build Heal, finished 2024. Twenty years animating at Disney. He now lives in Deniliquin, one of the towns this film covers. He is not from Australia. He is here to make this film.

People in the UK saw the first film and began investigating their own industry. That conversation continued without us in the room. We are asking people to come on the next road trip, not to fund an argument. The Farm Bill is not claimed as a result of that first film. The result of this one still has to be earned.

How to contribute

Fund a stop.

Every contribution is logged against a stop. You will be told which one, when it was shot, and what came out of it — by email, and on this page. Backing this film does not buy carbon credits, invest in a farm, or fund the proposed Deniliquin processing hub. It funds the next named road stop.

Contribute now Talk about a larger gift

Working budgets — envelopes, not quotes. One stop: regional $18k, Geelong $25k, interstate $30k. Whole feature (not a stop price): lean $150k, premium $300k.

Not tax-deductible. Carbon Capture Shield, Inc. is a Delaware company. Documentary Australia fiscal sponsorship is a separate track for larger gifts — it is not this page.

What we will not promise you

The uncertainty is the film.

Just Add Water? is a provocation, not a thesis. We do not know whether hemp earns its place in Australian agriculture, and a film that already knew would not be worth funding. Three things follow from that, and they are commitments, not caveats:

We publish nothing without consent. Every short, every field note, every frame of a family or a community goes out only after the people in it have agreed to it. The Broome chapter proceeds on the community's terms or it does not proceed.

We will not put a percentage on it. There is no assembly cut yet. A film still being found on the road cannot be honestly described as seventy per cent complete, so we will not describe it that way.

The director keeps final cut. No contributor, sponsor or industry body gets editorial approval. That includes the ones this film may end up embarrassing.

Questions people actually ask

What happens if you do not hit the target?

Until a campaign platform is named, write to us from a docket on this page. When a campaign opens, each funded stop is shot even if the full route is not. Money is not held hostage for an unshot feature.

Is my contribution tax-deductible?

No. Gifts to Carbon Capture Shield, Inc. are not Australian tax-deductible. A DGR auspicer is not in place on this page.

Why not just get screen agency funding?

Direct funding from Screen Australia and the state agencies has been ruled out for this project. The alternative is the one you are looking at: fund the road leg by leg, publish as we go, and stay useful to the towns we film in rather than waiting three years for a broadcast slot.

Who is actually making this?

Directed, shot and edited by Darryl J. Nicke II, twenty years an animator at Disney, director of The Hemp Road Trip (2017), 10 Days Abroad: Albania (Best Editing, Florence Film Awards, 2020), and Hemp: Eat Build Heal. Sandy Naumann organises, budgets and plans the field work. We do not follow one person. Tim Schmidt and Winton Evers are chapters in the chain — seed, farm, mill, maker, buyer — not the whole film.

Is this an advertisement for the hemp industry?

No. At the start of the film there is nowhere for a farmer to buy seed, agronomic support is hard to find, and thousands of tonnes sit baled with no buyer. If that is an advertisement, it is a poor one. The film reports what the road produces.

What is Carbon Capture Shield's interest here?

CCS is pursuing a regional hemp processing hub in Deniliquin, one of the towns the film covers. That is disclosed, and it is why the access exists. CCS does not operate the farms in this film and does not hold editorial control over it.

Ten years ago, we went looking for what hemp could become.

Now we’re going to find out what it has become.

Come with us See the route again

A Senate clock is also running. The government response falls due in —. The film is the thing that keeps the question alive past its expiry date.