Trailer

Credits

Laurels

Logline

A lonely Vermont groundskeeper struggles through his workday when an encounter with a migrating hummingbird draws him into an unexpected connection with his co-worker.

Director's Statement

I think LINUS, overwhelmingly, is a film about connection.

It's also about the constant mundanity of life, and the questioning of why we have to live it. The Sisyphean comedic angst of always having to roll the stone up the mountain. The Chekhovian dramatic tension of yearning to live, but not truly living. But LINUS I believe is more than that. LINUS is just as importantly about the feeling of being part of the soft beauty of the world — the luck and absolute absurd gift it is to play a small part of the worldly whole, and the quiet, soft-spoken understanding of that truth.

When Clara hugs Thomas at the end of the film, it's a moment of true connectivity. A moment of "I see you." A moment of understanding, empathy, and most importantly hope. I think LINUS at its heart is all about hope.

We made this film with a lot of hope. Luck, fear and hope. When my parents moved to Vermont a few years back I started thinking about ways I could weasel myself into filming something there. In the short-lived trips I would take, it quickly became my favorite place in the world. The land felt different. Ancient. Honest.

I also knew around August, that ruby-throated hummingbirds would be passing through to continue their migration north. So being the dreamer that I am, I got myself and two of my friends from New York to come up to Vermont to make something. "If all else fails, at least we got a weekend away from the city."

As we shot, luck kept falling in our laps. We got shots of live hummingbirds on feeders while we ate pasta together. We had a storm roll in the night before shooting started and uprooted a huge tree in the front yard that served the story even better than I had written it. And as the days progressed, we got more and more confident that what we were making was special.

And now our little film is right here for you to watch. I hope it feels as authentic and beautiful as it did while we made it.

Thanks so much for watching,
— CQF

Stills

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Behind the Scenes

Process videos from the making of LINUS — coming soon.