The winner of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize, PRIMER is a superb sci-fi example of real American Independent cinema. Shot on Super-16mm for a reported $7,000, this audacious début by Texan engineer-turned-filmmaker Carruth is DIY filmmaking about a couple of DIY scientists. Aaron (Carruth) and Abe (Sullivan) are engineers by day, garage-based inventors by night. In search of the latest great whatsit that will free them from their day jobs, they stumble across something… At first they (and we) don’t know what it is, but once they discover its purpose, they can set about exploiting its uses, without pause for consequence. And so Pandora’s box is opened in a blaze of experimental narrative interlaced with aural and visual fireworks that will leave you scratching your head and begging for more. PRIMER joins the ranks of PI, MEMENTO, MULHOLLAND DRIVE and DONNIE DARKO – the great mind-f**k movies of our time. Plan to see it twice.
Primer
Directed by Shane Carruth