Most people leave (pi) behind in tenth grade calculus. Mathematician Max Cohen, the protagonist of Darren Aronofsky's �, thinks the transcendental symbol holds the key to cracking the stock market.

Max's years of scavenging have turned his dingy Chinatown, New York apartment into a crazy walk-in supercomputer he calls Euclid. Now Euclid's getting temperamental, and Max is plagued by nightmare migraines; meanwhile, a Wall Streeter set on financial domination and a cabalistic sect who want him to unlock the secrets of an ancient religious text, are closing in. "It's really a character study of a gifted guy who can't live in the real world told as a psychological conspiracy thriller," says Aronofsky.

Aronofsky, 27, studied film at Harvard and used �-star Sean Gullette as lead in his thesis short, Supermarket Sweep. He met producer Eric Watson and cinematographer Matthew Libatique at the AFI, where all three were MFA fellows, and the trio brainstormed �'s story with Gullette last year. "I was inspired by Mike Leigh and Tom Noonan to workshop the script with different actors, letting them create their own scenes until the story gelled," says Aronofsky.

The filmmakers went to equity investors for �'s "under a million dollars" production financing. �'s four-week shoot this fall included Chinatown exteriors and stage work at a Brooklyn lighting warehouse where the filmmakers built sets for Max's apartment. Production designer Matthew Maraffi, whose last challenge was creating sets for the original production of Broadway's Rent, had to fashion Euclid as a kind of hacker's surreal wet dream with equal parts high-tech majesty and menace. Watson got the raw materials by soliciting universities and computer companies across the country to donate obsolete hardware headed for the trash heap. Aronofsky shot in 16mm black-and-white reversal, usually used for music videos, to create the stylized look he wanted. All rights are available.

Cast: Sean Gullette, Samia Shoaib, Ben Shenkman, Pamela Hart, Ajay Naidu, Mark Margolis, Stephen Pearlman. Crew: Producer, Eric Watson; Coproducer, Scott Vogel; Associate Producer, Scott Franklin; Writer/Director, Darren Aronofsky; Cinematographer, Matthew Libatique; Production Designer, Matthew Maraffi; Editor, Oren Sarch. Contact: Eric Watson, Protozoa Pictures, c/o Truth & Soul, Suite 3E, 181 Hudson Street, NY, NY 10013. Tel: (212) 941-6323, Fax: (212) 941-1045.

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