By Bailey Pennick
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. While we can learn a lot about the filmmakers from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival through the art that these storytellers share with us, there’s always more we can learn about them as people. We decided to get to the bottom of those artistic wells with our ongoing series: Give Me the Backstory!
Sometimes the journey to Park City is a longer and more winding one than expected. No one knows that better than Max Walker-Silverman. “My first engagement with the Festival was having my short films turned away during film school,” says the filmmaker behind Rebuilding. Thankfully, that short story soon gave way to a longer epic about perseverance and promise.
“Then I premiered my first feature A Love Song there, which really made my life better. And, even though it was an online COVID [year] Fest, I so appreciated the team and everything they did,” he remembers. “I really just truly think Sundance is the most amazing thing, and, in particular, have so much respect for the Institute and the films and people it has supported over an amazingly long period of time.”
Walker-Silverman’s regard for cultivating community and storytelling is felt deeply throughout his sophomore film, debuting in the Premieres section of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Rebuilding follows a displaced rancher (a nuanced performance by Josh O’Connor) trying to move on after his family home burns in a major wildfire. From experiences with FEMA housing to reconnecting with his daughter and his ex-wife, Dusty wrestles with the idea of returning to a past that no longer exists, muddling through moment to moment, and realizing that nothing is permanent in this world.
The story is quiet when seen against the sweeping landscape of the American West — both in its awesome grandness and its most fragile state — however its commitment to community and growth speaks volumes.
Below learn about Walker-Silverman’s personal connection to the story behind Rebuilding, the importance of the right pick-up truck, and why stories that feature climate change are important.
Tell us why and how you got into filmmaking?
I always liked writing and art, and I had great teachers — English teachers, theater teachers, poetry teachers. And then one day when I was 22 I thought, well, there’s this one art form that combines images and music and writing and adventures — all these things I like — and it’s basically the medium of its time, and that’s film. So that’s what I do.
Describe who you want Rebuilding to reach
I really hope it reaches all kinds of people all over, but, the truth is, I think you’ve got to make things for your friends. That’s the only audience you really know. Everything else is a bonus.
What was the biggest inspiration behind this film?
In 2020, when the world already felt crumbly in so many ways, my grandmother’s house burned in a wildfire. There was smoke in the air all that summer in Colorado, but it was home still, and I was falling in love, and there was nowhere else I wanted to be. The damage the fire did was terrifying, but watching the gentle ways that nature returned afterwards was somehow too fascinating to be sad.
And my family, fragmented as so many are, continue to also be this loving thing that found a way forward. So I wrote this story trying to imagine what a future could hold and how there could be hope in it.
Why does this story need to be told now?
I’ve been scared of climate change for as long as I can remember — since I was a really little kid. Since I was told to turn off the faucet while brushing my teeth in elementary school. It never really let me imagine a future. In the news and in art climate change is this thing that’s presented as a choice: we either stop it or we fail. But it’s here. It’s here now and we need art that acknowledges that. [Art] that says, ‘OK, here’s this thing, what the hell do we do?’ And maybe the first thing we need to do is imagine a future, a future that is so hopeful and lovely, because how else can we possibly fight for it? I hope that comes through in this film.
Tell us an anecdote about casting or working with your actors.
This isn’t an anecdote really, but I just want to say that Josh O’Connor is as sweet a man as I’ve ever met and this shoot would have been so hard without such a kind and generous fella at the heart of it.
Your favorite part of making the film? Memories from the process?
I am so lucky. I live in the place I love and make art there with my friends. It’s the best life there could be. The crew was so lovely, and the cast was a really beautiful mix of local folks and pros. It’s cool to be this traveling circus together.
What was a big challenge you faced while making Rebuilding?
The wind, the rain, the sun, the clouds! I don’t know. Maybe it’s all idealized in my memory but it was a nice time. We had a bizarrely hard time finding the right pickup truck.
Who are your creative heroes?
John Prine, Alice Rohrwacher.
What was the last thing you saw that you wish you made?
Fallen Leaves by Aki Kaurismäki
What’s your favorite film that has come from the Sundance Institute or Festival?
Genghis Blues
Why is filmmaking important to you? Why is it important to the world?
Anything we can share is important. A specific room at a specific time. A bright wall in the dark.
Films are lasting artistic legacies, what do you want yours to say?
That home and family can both be constructed and reconstructed in infinite unusual ways, and that is a very reassuring thing.
