Primer’s Shane Carruth Returns with Upstream Color

Primer was one of those too-rare sci-fi films that was much more about ideas than special effects. (Not that it had too many special effects to begin with, seeing as how it had a $7,000 budget.) Its intricate time travel plot was less about the details of time travel itself, and more about the philosophical and moral ramifications of using time travel to manipulate the world around you. All in all, a fascinating film that any serious genre fan needs to see.

Unfortunately, the film’s writer and director, Shane Carruth, has apparently kept a low profile since Primer came out in 2004. He wrote a script for a movie titled A Topiary that generated some buzz a few years back, and he worked on the time travel sequences in this year’s acclaimed Looper, but that’s really been about it… until now, that is. Carruth recently released some stills and other info about his new film, Upstream Color. Here’s the film’s synopsis:

A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the lifecycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.

As with Primer, Carruth wrote and directed the film, and is one of the leads (the other being Amy Seimetz). Collider reports that the film will have its premier at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.