Despite this being Cybulski and Tintori's first feature, the two, who also happen to be husband and wife, have been working together for years, writing and directing shorts and what Cybulski calls "art films... museum-kind of films." And that slightly atypical film background proved to be an asset in tackling Chicago Cab - a movie in which the beginning, middle, and end are determined only by the progression of the sun across the sky, not by an actual series of events.

Says Cybulski: "The weird little movies we used to make, the shorts, they are non-narrative and very impressionistic. So that really prepared us for this. We really didn't need that [narrative structure]. I think a lot people who come from more traditional storytelling, they would find that a little more unnerving, but we were really comfortable because we have worked in all kinds of styles."

Chicago Cab, which features Paul Dillon as the hack, as well as appearances from John Cusack, Julianne Moore, Gillian Anderson, Laurie Metcalf, and Michael Ironside, is based on a long-running Windy City fringe play called Hellcab, written by Will Kern, who also did the adaptation. And Kern's stark and almost out-of-pocket sense of humor is, for the directors, what really drives (unavoidable pun) the story.

Cybulski explains, "The humor that it is, is really horrible and really funny at the same time. It has that kind of blend, and that's what gets it past the narrative; because there are so many different flavors rolled in together, that makes it satisfying."

The blend of tones "was really appealing to us," elaborates husband Tintori. "We tried to keep that in the directing of it - you just don't know where it's going. There are many ways to have done this that would have fallen into many stereotypes or clichés, but it doesn't at all."