Rob Munday
Although it’s something of a hackneyed question, asking filmmakers where a story originated will always hold a certain fascination. The answer often reveals as much about the filmmaker as it does the film itself. In the case of A Crime Across Four Landscapes, director and co-writer Aidan Weaver explains that before there was even a story, “there was a desire to start with place, to build a film outward from locations and atmosphere rather than arrive with a fully formed narrative already in hand.”
I don’t want this article to act as a spoiler for Weaver’s inventive and thought-provoking short, but its origins feel particularly important because of the way the film invites us to engage with it. Looking to “experiment with form and structure”, Weaver approaches the narrative almost like a puzzle, explaining that he has “always been drawn to films that ask the audience to engage rather than passively observe.” It’s a philosophy that immediately brought to mind Jörn Threlfall’s award-winning short Over, which we discussed back in 2016. At the time, Threlfall said he liked to “make the viewer be the detective”, and A Crime Across Four Landscapes shares that same impulse. Presented as though we’re observing events through the window of a passing car, the film becomes a twisted game of spot-the-difference, repeatedly returning to familiar locations and asking us to notice what’s changed. Sometimes those alterations are dramatic – a bloody car crash, for example – while others are far subtler, such as a dog quietly being released from its chains.
Unlike Over, however, Weaver isn’t interested in neatly closing the case. While Threlfall’s reverse chronology ultimately provides answers and resolution, A Crime Across Four Landscapes leaves its mysteries partially unresolved. “Crime stories have always fascinated me for that reason,” Weaver explains, adding that it’s the “small connections” that allow us to try and “make sense of what’s happening.” Rather than guiding us towards a definitive conclusion, the film offers a broader picture, refusing to dwell on motivations or consequences and instead asking whether we actually need such certainties for a narrative to remain compelling. The crime story at its centre could easily have felt familiar, but its fragmented structure and demanding form make it feel refreshingly original instead.
A Crime Across Four Landscapes was selected as the winner of the Vimeo Staff Pick Award at the 2026 Palm Springs Shortfest.