A divorced father struggles to pick up the pieces in the wake of a devastating wildfire in Rebuilding, which played in competition at the 2025 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and opens in Prague cinemas this weekend. This gentle story of life on the outskirts of the modern American west feels deeply authentic with its stark location filming in rural Colorado, and deeply resonates thanks to Josh O’Connor‘s tender performance in the leading role; it’s a quiet gem.
Written and directed by Max Walker-Silverman, whose 2022 debut A Love Song offered a similarly authentic portrait of life in the rural west, Rebuilding stars O’Connor as Dusty, a cowboy of limited means whose family home has recently gone up in flames during wildfires in Colorado’s San Luis Valley. Dusty now finds himself living in a government-run FEMA trailer park.
In the FEMA camp, Dusty meets others who have lost everything, including Mali (Kali Reis), who became a single mother after her husband died in the fires. Scenes and characters in the FEMA camp recall Chloé Zhao‘s Nomadland, only these people haven’t chosen to be here; they each have their own complex stories, but we can feel the quiet desperation through each of the performances.
The titular Rebuilding refers not to Dusty restoring his family’s ranch—until a moving sequence late in the film, he can’t even bring himself to return to the location—but to Dusty putting himself back together and moving on following the tragedy. He has a young daughter, Callie Rose (Lily LaTorre), with ex-wife Ruby (Meghann Fahy), but few prospects for work in their small town. Employment opportunities will take him far away from his hometown, and the time he spends with Callie Rose now might be the last he gets to spend with her for a while.
Rebuilding is a kind of survival story, but not in the sense of overcoming nature or adversity; it’s about the struggle to survive when our own personal world goes up in flames, yet the world around us keeps going on as if nothing happened. In one memorable sequence, Dusty needs internet access for Callie Rose to complete her homework. That doesn’t exist at the FEMA camp, so the duo treks out to the local library; it’s closed, but they can still catch a wifi signal outside.
There’s an inherent kindness to O’Connor that rings through even as the actor underplays and suppresses emotion—Rian Johnson also took advantage of this in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery—and he is at his very best in Rebuilding as a man profoundly affected by external circumstances who nevertheless refuses to let them change who he is. O’Connor is able to convey a deep, quiet resilience, capturing the small, human moments of doubt, tenderness, and hope without ever tipping into melodrama.
Walker-Silverman gives all his actors room to breathe, and the results are consistently nuanced. Amy Madigan delivers a tender performance as Ruby’s mother, bringing warmth and grounding to scenes that could have easily become sentimental; it’s a far cry from her Oscar-nominated turn in Weapons. LaTorre is also impressive as Callie Rose, conveying a mix of vulnerability and determination that amplifies O’Connor’s portrayal of Dusty’s quiet heroism.
The rural Colorado landscapes—both lush valleys and charred, fire-scarred terrain—are captured with a painterly eye by Alfonso Herrera Salcedo, turning the locations into more than just settings; they become active participants in Dusty’s journey. The visual interplay between devastation and renewal mirrors the film’s themes, and the authenticity of shooting in locations impacted by real-life wildfires adds an almost documentary-like realism to the story.
At its core, Rebuilding is a meditation on resilience, connection, and the ways humans navigate irreversible change. The film emphasizes the personal aftermath of disaster—how life continues, relationships endure, and daily life must be renegotiated in extraordinary circumstances. Dusty’s journey is less about restoring a physical home than reconstructing a sense of self, highlighting how care, responsibility, and human connection become acts of survival in their own right.
Rebuilding is a quietly affecting portrait of modern rural America, anchored by O’Connor’s deeply empathetic lead performance. Walker-Silverman’s direction, supported by a talented ensemble and Herrera Salcedo’s evocative cinematography, crafts a story that feels authentic, intimate, and resonant. It’s a film that finds beauty in small gestures and perseverance in the face of loss, reminding viewers that recovery is not always dramatic, but an enduringly human condition.
