5Q's w/: Zeshaan Younus "THE BUILDOUT" DIrector

QUESTION#1: How do your top 3 favorite films influence your filmmaking?:

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK was a major influence on THE BUILDOUT. It's an esoteric and dreamlike examination of the unknown that ended up being a primary philosophical touchpoint. TO THE WONDER is my favorite Malick film and there's a lot of it in our project. Not only visually, but spiritually as well. Those characters lament a rootlessness that can only be cured through closeness. Lastly, I have to reference AS ABOVE SO BELOW, which is my favorite found footage horror film. I love the lore, the focus on performances, and the intentionality of the handheld camera. It was ahead of its time.

QUESTION#2: What do you wish someone would ask you about your film and why?:

I always love telling people that we shot THE BUILDOUT in 7 days, because it's such an insane and ambitious part of our production story. I wish people would ask how and why we did that. The how is courtesy of an irreplaceable cast and crew. The why is because it was either that or not doing it at all. The latter didn't seem like an option any of us wanted to consider. I think THE BUILDOUT is a miracle and every time I talk about our schedule, I look back in awe at what we achieved thanks to an amazing team.

QUESTION#3: What scared you the most about making this film?:

The endless list of unquantifiable variables. What would the weather really be like? Would our drone experience a technical difficulty during our 15 minute sunset window? Would our radio unexpectedly go silent during a crucial stunt coordination moment? With a film like ours, being entirely outdoors, we took away any semblance of security or comfort. Each day we jumped into a large vehicle and surrendered ourselves to what waited for us in the wilderness. All we could control was our preparation and hope that every single second of work in pre-production would pay off. As always, what could have gone wrong, did. That didn't matter though, because we came together as a group and worked through the problems together.

QUESTION#4: If you can only pick one of these options to make your next movie: 1) unlimited budget but only a single take of every shot 2) Academy award winning composer, but they're not allowed to watch the film 3) A-list cast, but they're directed using only charades - then why would you make that particular choice?:

Unlimited budget but only a single take of every shot, without a doubt. Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a huge inspiration. If you know his work, those monolithic single takes transcend time and space and push the viewer into new, uncharted territory. It would be a dream to wander around my ideal locations, with a top-tier team, and see what we could discover knowing we have but only one limitation. Now I have to watch MEMORIA for the 5th time, thanks a lot.

QUESTION#5: What's does the future hold for this film and you?:

Our hope for THE BUILDOUT is to continue a meaningful festival run and eventually find a way to get it in front of as many people as possible. It's a strange beast, falling between genres so effortlessly, and maybe that will be its strength at the end of the day. The greatest compliment would be for someone to say "I've never seen anything like THE BUILDOUT." As far as what I'm doing next, I have a new feature roughly 75% done and I hope to have the privilege of being able to make it one day.

Social media to share with our readers:

@zmyounus on IG, X, and Letterboxd