September 10, 2025 For Immediate Release
New Mexico Filmmaker Doug Fine’s Documentary AMERICAN HEMP FARMER Screens at the 2nd Silver City Community Film Festival
Director became wildfire refugee while finishing the film about extreme climate mitigation.
What: New Mexico Author Doug Fine’s award-winning documentary about food security, climate mitigation and regenerative living, AMERICAN HEMP FARMER, screens on Friday, October 3, at 7 p.m. at the historic Silco Theater in Silver City, New Mexico. A Director Q and A and book signing will follow the screening.
When: Friday, October 3, 2025, 7 p.m.
Where: Silco Theater, 311 N. Bullard St., Silver City, New Mexico.
Film Info:
Web: AmericanHempFarmer.com Instagram: @organiccowboy
New Mexico Goat rancher and author/filmmaker Doug Fine found himself part of a growing demographic this solstice: climate refugee. Just as he was finishing a film about how each of us can help mitigate extreme wildfire called AMERICAN HEMP FARMER, he and his family evacuated their New Mexico ranch due to this summer’s Trout fire.
“We’re toasting s’mores while sitting on crates of family photos and birth certificates,” Fine recalls. “And my family is discussing how AMERICAN HEMP FARMER has some solutions to offer, so it couldn’t be more timely.” He added, “We were only climate refugees for a week, and we never ran out of kombucha. But it made me hope this film’s messaging gets out to the world.”
One of southern New Mexico’s popular and longtime authors, Fine is seeing success out of the gate with AMERICAN HEMP FARMER, his first feature documentary. The film won Best New Mexico Documentary at its Santa Fe Film Festival world premiere, and will now screen at the 2nd Silver City Community Film Festival on October 3, at 7 p.m. at the 102-year-old Silco Theater in Silver City, NM.
Based on his New Mexico-set book of the same name (a finalist for the 2021 Book of the Year in the Santa Fe Reporter), AMERICAN HEMP FARMER documents how, after an earlier wildfire nearly turned his family (and goats) into refugees on their remote New Mexico ranch, Fine set out to discover food security around the world while sequestering carbon via hemp and other regenerative crops. He then follows three digital age farming families for a year as they attempt to grow a healthy crop and business while mitigating extreme climate events (such as the 2025 Trout wildfire) though regenerative living and farming.
“This is the best documentary I've seen in a long time,” said the film’s co-Executive Producer Barry Gordon. “And it's incredibly timely with its wildfire mitigation theme. No place is unaffected by wildfires, and AMERICAN HEMP FARMER offers solutions in a fun package. This is must-watch, positive film for our times. It’s for families, for everyone.”
Fine came to renown in New Mexico with the 2008 publication of his regenerative farming bestseller FAREWELL, MY SUBARU, set on his Funky Butte Ranch in New Mexico (spoiler alert: the woman he meets near the end of that comedic adventure memoir is now Doug’s wife). He was also a New Mexico
Magazine columnist in the 2000s, and he is still a homeschooling father and goat herder whose life has been documented in Smithsonian Magazine and on NPR. Fine made the documentary over several years as he was researching the book that would become his regenerative farming bible AMERICAN HEMP FARMER.
“It’s been a total labor of love,” Fine said. “Screening the film at the Silco Theater in Silver City makes the whole project come home and feel like the regenerative messaging might actually reach folks. The Silco Theater, like the town and region, has history: the theater is a century old and the region’s history goes back Millennia.”
“It’s the film’s solution-based optimism that makes it rare,” said the movie’s other co-EP Andrew DeAngelo, adding that AMERICAN HEMP FARMER generates laughs even when covering timely topics like food security and wildfire mitigation. That was the plan, Fine says: “Becoming a regenerative farmer or supporting them in your community is extremely fun. One farmer describes her hemp polyculture garden as her ‘happy place’ in the film. I call it sanity.”
Besides being partly set in New Mexico, the beautifully shot AMERICAN HEMP FARMER also has several New Mexico cast and crew: Fine, a New Mexico rancher for decades, directs, and life-long Las Cruces denizen Julian Gallegos is the film’s editor. Fine’s wife Amanda and their sons earn camera credits, and the new Mexico- based GRIP (Gila Resources Information Project) is one of the film’s underwriters.
As for what comes next for AMERICAN HEMP FARMER, Fine’s team is in discussions with both television and theatrical distributors. Those interested in keeping up with the film’s journey to theaters, TV screens and phones can follow Doug Fine on Instagram @organiccowboy and/or sign up for Fine’s free Dispatches From the Funky Butte Ranch at DougFine.com
AMERICAN HEMP FARMER will screen at the 2nd Silver City Community Film Festival on Friday, October 3, at 7 p.m. at the historic Silco Theater. Address: 311 N. Bullard St., Silver City, New Mexico. A Director Q and A and book signing will follow the screening.