The Incident Report

When a routine conflict at a public library leads to a tense interrogation by her area manager, a clerk must defend her actions, sparking a deeper battle over empathy, homelessness, and D.E.I. — all while fighting to keep her job.

  • Colton Van Til
    Director
    MELTDOWN: A NUCLEAR FAMILY'S ASCENSION INTO MADNESS, ABERDEEN
  • Colton Van Til
    Writer
  • Sophia Hoefle
    Producer
    MELTDOWN: A NUCLEAR FAMILY'S ASCENSION INTO MADNESS, ABERDEEN
  • Ian Messner
    Producer
  • Maleah Goldberg
    Key Cast
    "Casey"
    HACKS, MELTDOWN: A NUCLEAR FAMILY'S ASCENSION INTO MADNESS
  • Cooper Tomlinson
    Key Cast
    "Brett"
    OBSESSION, DUTTON RANCH
  • William Elsman
    Key Cast
    "Seth"
    MELTDOWN: A NUCLEAR FAMILY'S ASCENSION INTO MADNESS
  • Caleb Zlomke
    Key Cast
    "Nick"
    SAFE (2025)
  • Griffin Voth
    Director of Photography
    ADAM'S SONG, AYO CHECK UP!
  • The Northwest Film Forum
    In Association With
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Drama, Social Issue
  • Runtime:
    12 minutes 56 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    March 2, 2026
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    ARRIRAW 4K
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1.66
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Colton Van Til

Colton Van Til is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His debut feature, Aberdeen (2019), was completed after his freshman year of film school and went on to receive international distribution and a limited theatrical release. His second feature, Meltdown: A Nuclear Family’s Ascension into Madness (2023), has screened to sold-out audiences at major genre festivals including Fantaspoa and Macabro FICH, and earned him the George A. Romero Fellowship.

A graduate of Loyola Marymount’s School of Film and TV, Van Til crafts emotionally driven narratives about people caught in the machinery of broken institutions. His early work tackled a Me Too scandal inside a high school sports department, setting the tone for a career committed to politically resonant, character-driven storytelling. Born and raised outside Seattle, he now lives and works in Los Angeles.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

There are few places like the public library left in our society. It’s one of the last public institutions where, in theory, everyone is truly equal. Whether you’re a former senator or a convicted felon, you get the same services and wait in the same line. I spend a lot of time in my local branch and I’ve come to see the public library as one of the last remaining third spaces in my home city of Los Angeles.

In early 2025, as I watched wave after wave of attacks on democratic institutions roll out from our federal government, I kept thinking about my local library, where I’d seen tense situations unfold between unhoused patrons and staff. Somehow, the librarians always found a way to handle conflict with patience and humanity, never with fear and hatred. That stuck with me.

One day, a librarian handed me a textbook by Ryan J. Dowd, a resource used in library systems across the country to train staff in handling difficult interactions with unhoused patrons. And something clicked: the very tools that allowed these librarians to de-escalate conflict - tools rooted in D.E.I. principles - were the same ones being stripped from public institutions across the country. That’s when the spark was lit to make this film.

THE INCIDENT REPORT follows two librarians, one idealistic, one rigid, whose approaches to conflict seem incompatible. One has received training with D.E.I. training; the other hasn’t. This leads to a growing rift over when, or whether, to involve the police. Neither is entirely right. I didn’t set out to choose sides, I wanted to explore how we navigate gray areas with compassion and accountability.

I made this film for someone who doesn’t already agree with me. And to reach them, it had to be entertaining. I drew from filmmakers like Fincher, Soderbergh, and Mann - directors who I’ve obsessed over for years for the trust they place in the audience, for the tension they build through precision, not noise. This film doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, but I hope it offers something more lasting: a way to see our political moment more clearly through a quiet, urgent story set in our public libraries.