Shane Carruth on enigmatic sci-fi Upstream Colour "That was such a surreal moment," says Shane Carruth. He's referring to Steven Soderbergh singling him out earlier this year as the type of filmmaker Hollywood should be nurturing with three-picture deals in order to guarantee the long-term health of cinema. "I don't expect to ever be given money to do something," says the 41-year-old director. There's just no common ground between the way that they traditionally operate and the way that I feel I need to. He knows of what he speaks. Having caused a stir on the festival circuit in 2004 with his debut film Primer, a brain-frying time travel thriller that he wrote, directed, shot, starred in, edited and sound-tracked for the princely sum of $7,000, Carruth lost the next few years developing a cerebral sci-fi film about automatons, unaware that the enthusiasm with which he was being greeted in Hollywood wasn't genuine. I only have one project in front of me, so when I was continually met with smiles and confirmations that it was going to happen, I wasn't smart enough to realise that that's just the way people talk out there. Now, however, Carruth is back with a project that is, by some measure, the most singular and original film of the year. The enigmatically titled Upstream Colour revolves around a woman called Kris (Amy Seimetz) as she tries to rebuild her life after having her memory, personality and assets stripped from her by a thief. If the basic premise sounds conventional - and Kris does also fall in love along the way with a guy called Jeff (played by Carruth) who has been through a similar ordeal - the execution of the story is anything but, involving as it does brain-altering parasites, orchid hunters, ambient music, minimal dialogue and a drove of pigs that seem to share human consciousness. "If the core of the story is solid, you don't have to deliver a photograph of it, you can deliver an impression of it," says Carruth, who confirms he's spurred on by the desire to challenge the way cinematic narratives function. I think film is still in its infancy right now and maybe in a hundred years it will be something we don't recognise right now in the same way that I don't think anyone in 1914 could have pointed at Star Wars or Jean-Luc Godard and predicted that was coming. The long-term health of cinema may just be fine after all. Upstream Colour is in cinemas now. Follow @aliharkness on Twitter