Rebuilding (2025 | USA | 95 minutes | Max Walker-Silverman)

An aching tenderness permeates every frame of Max Walker-Silverman’s story of environmental devastation in the American West. The deeply personal story is told through the lens of Dusty (Josh O’Connor), whose family’s land and legacy were devastated by severe wildfires. Adrift and uncertain in the wake of the disaster, he takes up temporary residence in a FEMA-supplied mobile home overlooking the high Southern Colorado valley. Amid the strikingly photographed vistas — distant mountains, expansive plateaus, and candy-colored sunsets — the film also depicts the struggles of the people who inhabit these beautiful yet perilous landscapes. Library parking lots as pop-up islands of connectivity, ranchers coming to terms with the impossibility of taming the desert, third-generation farmers appraising damage that will take decades to recover.

O’Connor inhabits his wayward cowboy with forlorn resilience as the catastrophe-driven pause becomes an occasion to re-connect with his young daughter. Lily LaTorre brings outstanding composure and presence to the role; they’re surrounded by an exceptional supporting cast, including Meghann Fahy, Amy Madigan, Kali Reis, and many first-time actors who create a rich textural picture of this world with few words. While the setting is one of extreme loss, Walker-Silverman’s interests lie with the slim, hopeful flipside. Quietly heartbreaking and life-affirming, we witness amid these characters who have lost everything, a touching generosity of spirit and the fluttering, tenuous possibilities of community bloom.

Rebuilding played in SIFF’s New American Cinema program; Bleecker Street will handle its US Theatrical release later this year.

The Things You Kill (2025 | Canada, Belgium | 113 minutes | Alireza Khatami)

Censorship laws forced Iranian filmmaker Alireza Khatami to relocate the setting of his provocative excavation of the toxicities of the patriarchy to Turkey. As the film opens, Ali (Ekin Koç) is a man divided. A part-time university professor teaching the art of translation, he and his younger wife, a successful veterinarian, are having trouble starting a family of their own (for reasons that threaten his masculinity). His aging mother is in poor health, but even though he returned from America to be closer to her, his visits to care for her are seemingly infrequent due to an antagonistic relationship with his own overbearing and frequently absent father. When he’s not in class debating with students as to whether the craft of translation is more like that latinate (“bring across”) or arabic (“to kill”), Ali decamps from the city to tend to a “garden” in the countryside of undernourished trees, a rustic cabin, and a ferocious but loyal guard dog.

When a wandering laborer (Erkan Kolçacak Köstendil) offers help with the work of improving the farm, Ali’s life takes a series of dramatic turns. Working with cinematographer Bartosz Świniarski, the film unfolds through windows and mirrors, slow zooms into conversations, and oppressive shots of cluttered homes. When his mother dies under potentially suspicious circumstances, Ali’s life fractures further. Khatami depicts this transition in daring fashion, such that if one — hypothetically, of course — stepped out of the theater to refill their Coke Zero at the wrong moment in the film, he might return confused by the way the narrative had shifted. As tensions mount, the story pushes the psychological tensions with political and societal echoes. The formal elements would crumble, though, without vivid commitment to performance and story from the actors. It’s the successful fusion of dreamlike qualities and nightmarish realities that grounds the family drama into one that’s effective on its own terms while remaining surprising and provocative until the very end.

The Things You Kill played in SIFF’s Contemporary World Cinema program. While it isn’t available for a streaming encore, US Distributor Cineverse plans a theatrical release this fall.

Good Boy (2025 | USA | 73 minutes | Ben Leonberg)

Woof. My own incorrect expectations may be partially to blame for my disappointment at this horror movie told mostly from the perspective of a dog. While I expected some humor amid the jump-scares from the supernatural presence that could only be seen through the eyes of a loyal companion, Ben Leonberg’s story about a man and his pooch decamping from a creaky house in the woods had entirely different intentions.

Instead of a snappy ghost story, we follow human Todd (Shane Jensen) and his beloved dog Indy (introduced in a montage tracing him from adorable puppy to constant companion) to his grandfather’s abandoned cabin. Todd is fresh out of the hospital and eager to leave city life behind him, despite the protestations of his sister and the house’s history of horrors. The entire movie, be it creepy-seeming neighbors appearing unexpectedly in the woods or spooky happenings in seemingly empty corners, is told either through a canine-eye view or gifted reaction shots and stunts from the furry four-legged friend.

It’s a cool conceit for a movie, and Indy — with his expressive eyes, floppy ears, shiny brown coat, and adorable white paws — having spent years training for the role, is more than up to the task. Unfortunately, aside from another canine co-star, the rest of the production doesn’t hold up its end of the bargain. Without a relatable human character to invest in, the story of impending doom quickly falls flat. Maybe the logic is meant to follow the short-term memory but long-term unflinching loyalty of a dog, but having the only human in the story being largely invisible and entirely unrelatable makes for an incredibly long 73 minutes. A dreary desaturated color palette combined with too-subtle special effects combine to make the film’s story more confusing than surprising. Indy’s a constant source of amusement, but Todd’s cyclical mood swings drain what should’ve been a powerful reveal of what’s been happening. Thus, any emotional impact of the culmination is less related to an investment in a tortured character’s arc than to relief that the painful experience has ended.

Here’s hoping that the highlights reel helps Indy to fetch a more deserving project for his next role. Maybe a team-up detective story with Messi from Anatomy of a Fall? Or an unlikely animal friends buddy comedy with the amazing cat from Sorry, Baby?

Good Boy played as part of SIFF’s WTF programming. It was recently acquired by Shudder.