That is when the world will end.

Colin West is an award-winning writer & director from a cul-de-sac in Ohio now based in Los Angeles & NYC.

His feature film credits include LINOLEUM starring Jim Gaffigan & Rhea Seehorn, which world premiered at SXSW Film Festival in 2022, and DOUBLE WALKER co-written by and starring Sylvie Mix, which was released in 2021.

His films have been screened internationally at festivals including SXSW, BFI London Film Festival, Fantasia, San Francisco International Film Festival, among many others. He was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Science in Cinema prize at SFIFF in 2022 and was an Annenberg Foundation MFA Fellow at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.

You can see the trailer for LINOLEUM by tapping the banner above.

Linoleum would not exist without Donnie Darko paving the way. The bold camera direction and staging from Richard Kelly blew my mind when I first saw it back in the early 2000s (the rabbit also terrified me).

The anticipatory camerawork here is a revelation. I love when the director’s hand makes itself evident on purpose — and this is definitely that. The way in which we tilt up and linger on the chandelier, then come down to see only the door shut… so good!

Because about three minutes later we cut to that same shot of the chandelier as the house gets obliterated by a plane engine.

This is all about anticipation.

Something BIG is coming, and this sets it up.

The camera is so active and tells us where to look. Ahh! It’s just brilliant. I can’t wait to see what Richard Kelly comes up with next. (ps, Southland Tales is top-notch).

As a note, in one Q&A I had an audience member ask about the way in which Linoleum deliberately has odd focal points from time to time — this was actually to bring attention to the future, to things that are to come, much like Darko does.