A beautiful woman has spent a lifetime obsessing about a hit-and-run she caused years ago. She knows she struck something, but left the scene before determining what it was - and if it was alive. She's allowed this event has taken over her life, and now lives in near-isolation with an equally lonely man. When a stranger enters her life that may hold the key to her past, reality becomes stranger than nightmares, and memories cannot be trusted.

Ignatz & Lotte follows the transformation of a small family during the year bracketing the first Gulf War. In the day Ignatz works for a television news affiliate, while at night he volunteers with his friend Kenji at the local alternative cable news program. Omnipresent political and economic pressures leave him little time to spend with his hard-working wife Lotte and their pre-school son Ewan. When Kenji moves from friend to boyfriend, it proves to be the last straw. Lotte realizes her family is disintegrating for a host of reasons from the macro to the micro. The painful sight of his son waving goodbye to him from a taxi window sharpens the painful nature of the times for Ignatz.