Writer/Director Max Walker-Silverman Discusses His Latest Feature, “Rebuilding”
Rebuilding is scheduled for release on November 14th, 2025. Filmmaker Max Walker-Silverman sat down with The Collision to talk about the process of creating such a personal and inspiring story. Check out our review here.
(Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Watch the full conversation above.)
Nyah Carlson: First off, congratulations on the film. I loved it. It’s such a beautiful, powerful story. Great job! I’m really excited for everything you have in store.
Max Walker-Silverman: Well, that’s very kind of you. Thank you very much.
Carlson: Rebuilding is such a difficult thing to do, but something everyone has to go through at some point. What does rebuilding mean to you?
Walker-Silverman: Very good question, but kind of a hard one. The movie was sort of an effort to figure that out. I think, and perhaps ironically and unhelpfully for the conversation we’re having here, you make a movie because you aren’t really sure how to phrase things in a sentence.
Ultimately, the movie—and this is sort of based on the losses I’ve seen and felt and undergone—finds that when rebuilding, things don’t come back as they were. That’s what the movie finds hope in, or at least searches for hope in. It’s more of a reinvention. There is a great human capacity to endure—even thrive—through things that seem too hard. There is also a simple fact that in the hardest moments, in moments of loss, people come together and care for each other in ways they don’t otherwise.
I wish it lasted longer and was more enduring. But that’s rebuilding, I guess. It’s not the wood, and it’s not the brick. It’s the people, the community, and the belief that it can be done.
Carlson: Very well said. This film feels like a love letter to Colorado and the American West and Midwest. That is where you grew up, right?
Walker-Silverman: Yeah, It’s all Southern Colorado. I grew up there and lived there. I made the movie just on the other side of the mountains here.
Carlson: What do you think makes Southern Colorado and that part of the world so special?
Walker-Silverman: It’s very pretty. I guess that tops the list. Everywhere is beautiful and special, but I’m grateful to have dramatic mountains and valleys and rivers and changing seasons and all of these things that make the natural world not just an idea but something you experience every day. Looking at a forest and knowing it preserved through fights people fought and choices people made. On the other hand, there’s the mountain that was mined and the rubble and another path that was taken.
I guess nature feels like a ledger of things that have happened and choices that have been made for good or ill. There’s something powerful about feeling a part of that continuing legacy. Somehow, in Southern Colorado, we all share that. The hippies I grew up with and the ranchers, there’s a lot they disagree about. But that connection to the place and some sense of stewardship is a unifying force. I think that’s a pretty special thing.
Carlson: Speaking of beauty, why do you think it holds the power it does and what’s the importance of beauty in life and art?
Walker-Silverman: Beauty is just so real. The sun rises every morning and sets every night. It’s always quite a pretty thing. I don’t really think of trying to make a film beautiful as if it’s a choice. It would be so insane and cruel not to make it beautiful. It’s also kind of condescending. I think sometimes people think a movie about hard times or working people shouldn’t look beautiful. But that’s crazy.
We all have the chance to see the same sunset. That’s the hardest thing for the bad people in the world to take away. Beauty is there when so little else is. We have that as humans. Somehow we’ve evolved to see it and appreciate it. In a world in which our conscience haunts us in so many ways, at least we have that. At least we have beauty and hope. It’s all worth it for that.
Carlson: In Rebuilding, I think your belief in that is so clear. Even in this horrible disaster and all of the grief, you still maintain those sweeping landscapes. There’s so much beauty.
Walker-Silverman: There was a fire in my grandma’s house in California, a very different landscape. I went back and it was haunting. But you could see the ocean, and you couldn’t see it before from that spot. It was sad and bleak and a lot of things, but it was also beautiful. It sounds hokey, but it’s true.
Carlson: It’s so poetic. Just that fact.
Walker-Silverman: Yeah, I guess it’s poetic, but it is also a fact.
Carlson: Shifting gears a little bit. Names are so important in everyday life, and that definitely seems to bleed over into Rebuilding. Is there a deeper significance to the name Dusty, especially the fact that it’s a nickname?
Walker-Silverman: I mean, Dusty is a classic cowboy name. I guess I was thinking of the Prairie Home Companion, this old radio show that goes back to the tradition of singing cowboys. Some sense of the cowboy archetype is totally real. It’s just farming; it’s raising cattle. But it’s also this completely interesting, romanticized product of entertainment that goes way back to the beginnings of Hollywood and into early radio. Way back to when America was deciding what it was culturally. There’s kind of a loop to it too. It’s not just culture that is influenced by cowboys. Cowboys wind up being influenced by culture too. I think that’s kind of interesting and funny.
So I guess the name is kind of a tip of a hat. A real one, because I met like four cowboys named Dusty while making the movie. There’s this kind of cultural back and forth of what’s the real-deal lifestyle and what’s the funny cultural history that has gotten pretty interwoven.
Carlson: I ask because I’d never met a Dusty until my fiancé.
Walker-Silverman: Oh really? Your fiancé is a Dusty?
Carlson: Yeah, he’s a Dusty!
Walker-Silverman: No way! Is that a birth name?
Carlson: Dustin, but he goes by Dusty.
Walker-Silverman: There you go!
Carlson: Are there any lessons from this film, the story, or the set that have seeped into your everyday life?
Walker-Silverman: A lot of film sets are cool, but this one was especially special in that it became kind of a reflection of the themes of the movie itself. It was just such an odd mix of people. It was a lot of cool hipster kids from New York who were really good at what they do and were so psyched to go on an adventure in the San Luis Valley. Then mechanics and theater students. It was just an odd mix of people who got along so well because they were doing something together. Now we’re going back and showing everyone the movie, and you’re reminded that these worlds don’t cross outside of these really unusual circumstances. Even just trying to maintain those friendships is a reminder that knowing each other and seeing each other takes work.
The other thing I’m trying to do is wake up and be hopeful, which is the moral of my own silly films. It should be easy enough to do, but it’s not. It’s hard. It’s not something that you succeed at and then you’re done. You have to try again every time you read the newspaper. But I believe in it. I made a whole movie about it, so I should at least try to live it.
And I’m doing my best.
Carlson: Hopefully the sunrise helps a little bit at least.
Walker-Silverman: It’s so interesting how you are surprised by a sunset every time somehow.
Carlson: One last question before we end. What do you hope audiences take away from this film?
Walker-Silverman: The best books I’ve read or albums I’ve listened to, I’ve finished and kind of sat there for a moment and looked out the window, and it’s just a little more textured. The colors are somehow a little richer. Or I get a text from my dad asking if I want to go watch a football game, and it feels a little more profound. I hope that whatever happens after watching the movie is just a little lovelier and more meaningful. The drive back home from the movie theater, putting a kid to bed. I don’t know. Hopefully there’s just a little more texture.
Carlson: Well, thank you so much for speaking with me today. Congratulations on the film, and good luck on all of your future endeavors.
Walker-Silverman: Thank you very much. Say hello to Dusty.
Carlson: I will!
Check out Rebuilding in select theaters and on streaming now! Read our review at the link here.
