If you think you'd enjoy being part of the romance of producing your own indie film, talk to Shane Carruth first.

"It was an awful experience. And that's the end of it, you're not curing cancer and you're not freeing a small civilization," he told CTV.ca about making his film Primer, which he wrote, directed and starred in.

In that period, "People asked me what I did for a living, and I had no honest answer."

The 32-year-old Dallas, Tex. resident –- who has a bit of Fox Mulder from the old X-Files series about him -- had never made a film before.  (His has a degree in mathematics and worked as a software engineer after college.) But Carruth knew he wanted to tell stories and knew he wanted to do it visually.

He made Primer for $7,000 US, but if he could have scrounged up another two or three thousand bucks, he would have got about one year of his life back from post-production.

But paradoxically, "it's more than exceeded my expectations with the way it's been received," he said.

For example, it won the grand jury prize for drama at this winter's Sundance Film Festival and was also awarded the Alfred P. Sloan award.

"The Prize carries a $20,000 US cash award and is designed to increase the visibility of outstanding independent films on science and technology and to showcase the work of emerging filmmakers tackling compelling topics in science," according to the Sundance website.

 The 80-minute Primer focuses on the relationship between Aaron and Abe, two young software engineers who are hacking around with two buddies in a garage. They are trying to develop new products that will ultimately lead to a big venture capital score.

Abe and Aaron branch off from the other two and develop what turns out to be a time machine.

But because time is a continuum, any time one of them is in the past, that time is also being occupied by their former selves. While time-travelling, they hide out in a motel adjacent to the self-storage unit where they have the machines set up.

(There's a lot of modern exurbia in this movie).

The film draws somewhat from Carruth's life experience, but he also said: "I knew what the story was thematically before I knew it would involve science."

It's about two guys who had a special relationship, one that is put at risk by the power of the machine they invented, he said.

"It's about the inability to trust because there's too much at risk. How trust is dependent on what you can lose by that trust failing."

Critical reaction has been mixed. It has centred on the density of ideas in the film, which some see as a good thing, and others as not so good.

While Carruth wants people to connect with the movie "as much as anybody," he also made it a bit for himself.

"When a movie sums itself up too tightly, I lose interest. In making the type of film I wanted to see ... this is what I would want.

"I'm not purposefully trying to confound people just for the sake of it. I didn't ever want to pander or sum it all up."

While making the film turned into a longer grind than expected –- Carruth originally thought it would take six to nine months, not three years – he says he wants to direct again.

"I hope I get to," he said, adding his current script is more of a romance.

Asked if he had any advice for aspiring filmmakers, Carruth said he'd wait until he made another film before he played mentor. "I got so much bad advice the last three years that I'll just shut up."

Primer will open in limited distribution in late October