Stephanie, a vibrant actress, meets Gerard, an NYPD counter-terrorism specialist who’s an aficionado of experimental theater. Flirtation ensues, ends disastrously, and forces Stephanie to the upstate home of musician Eleanor Friedberger, yet this escape is infected by violent memories.

Filtering the conspiracies of Jacques Rivette and the paranoid fantasies of David Lynch’s Inland Empire through the prism of an actor’s life, this slippery wonder balances wit with bite. Shot on atmospheric 16mm, Slow Machine is a surprising, darkly comic drama of identity and performance.