At Sundance, a film about wildfire recovery stirs raw emotions: ‘Community is the solution’

For those of us fortunate enough to avoid evacuation, much less life-altering destruction, during the recent L.A. wildfires, the past weeks have come with a certain numbness. Starring Josh O’Connor as Dusty, a rancher trying to pick up the pieces after a wildfire destroys his home, the film culminates in a moment of sorrow — and resilience — that finally brought me to tears: “You got what you got,” as one character puts it, “and it was always enough for me.” The film, which deals with derelict FEMA trailers, bureaucratic red tape and the impossible choice between starting over or moving on, was inspired by Walker-Silverman’s own family tragedy: A wildfire destroyed his grandmother’s Colorado home, taking her beloved recipes with it and leaving her once-verdant land a blackened burn scar. Co-starring Lily LaTorre as Dusty’s daughter, Callie-Rose; Meghann Fahy as his ex, Ruby, and Kali Reis as Mila, a woman who’s lost not only her home but her husband in the fire, “Rebuilding,” with uncanny timing, relates a tale that will be told many times over the coming years in Southern California and other disaster zones. Josh O’Connor and Lily LaTorre in “Rebuilding.” Kali, your character asks about staying in Colorado, “How long until it burns again?” I’m wondering how you kind of understood her fear of the fires coming back and causing destruction again, and then how she arrives at a kind of place of saying, “You know what, I do want to rebuild here instead of elsewhere.” Reis: She says as much as she hates it here, she loves it here. At one point, Dusty says, “It’s funny, the things you pack and the things you leave.” I wonder if the experience of making this film made any of you think of a particular heirloom or important item in your life, in your home, that you now would be like, “That’s on my list to make sure that I save.” LaTorre: I only found out about it a few days ago, but my great-grandmother, she wrote a book — I think it was either about her life or about the university she went to.