Special Report: A Safe Distance (2026)

Gloria Mercer and Aidan West talk with Mike about A Safe Distance (2026), their scrappy, off-grid Canadian crime thriller that started as a pandemic-era proof-of-concept short and grew into a full-blown Bonnie-and-Clyde riff shot on borrowed forest properties outside Vancouver. Mercer directs and West writes, and the two — longtime collaborators since their Simon Fraser University film school days — dig into how a straightforward drama about a woman who says no to a camping-trip proposal picked up a bag of stolen money and a pair of outlaw lovers along the way, channeling Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy and the Wachowskis' Bound in equal measure. They talk shooting entirely outdoors with bear visits and mid-scene thunderstorms, assembling a cast led by Bethany Brown, Tandia Mercedes, Cody Kearsley, and Chris McNally, and getting the film made with Canada Council and Creative BC funding plus a lot of neighborly door-knocking. Recorded on the ground at the Fantasia International Film Festival, where A Safe Distance played its Canadian premiere after stops at SXSW, Frameline, and Phoenix Film Festival.

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