Richard Kelly Biography
Summary
"Richard Kelly" (born March 28, 1975 in Newport News, Virginia) is an American film director and writer, best known for 2001's "Donnie Darko".
Early life
Born James Richard Kelly, son of Lane Kelly and Ennis Kelly, he grew up in Midlothian, Virginia where he attended Midlothian High School. When he was a child his father worked for NASA on the Mars Viking Lander program.
He won a scholarship to Southern California to study at the USC School of Cinema-Television where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He made two short films at USC, "The Goodbye Place" and "Visceral Matter", before graduating in 1997.
Film career
Kelly received only $9,000 to write and direct his film, Donnie Darko in 2001 and was given a budget of just $4,500,000. This was his first feature and was nominated for 21 small awards and won 11 of them including a nomination for a Saturn Award. At the age of 25 he was considered too young to be a professional screenwriter and director. The film later ended up number 2 on the 50 greatest independent films of all time, behind Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs".
He has written many scripts that haven't been produced, most famous of which are the adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" and Louis Sachar's "Holes". The latter screenplay is available as a PDF on (an unofficial Richard Kelly fansite) and Kelly hopes that he will one day secure the rights to the former script, so that fans may read that one as well.
His fourth film, and second feature, "Southland Tales", a rough cut of which screened at Cannes Film Festival 2006, was released November 16, 2007 and stars Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Kevin Smith and Miranda Richardson. It was nominated for the Golden Palm, the most prestigious award at Cannes Film Festival.
In 2008, Kelly's production company Darko Entertainment announced that it was producing the adaptation of the bestselling book "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" with director Bob Gosse. The book's author Tucker Max detailed Kelly's involvement in the process on his blog.
Awards and Nominations
Won
2001 - Sweden Fantastic Film Festival, Best Feature (Donnie Darko)
2001 - Catalonian International Film Festival, Best Screenplay (Donnie Darko)
2001 - San Diego Film Critics Society Award, Best Screenplay (Donnie Darko)
2002 - Gérardmer Film Festival, Premiere Award (Donnie Darko)
2002 - Cinénygma Film Festival, Audience Award (Donnie Darko)
2002 - Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, Silver Scream Award (Donnie Darko)
2002 - Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, Special Award (Donnie Darko)
2003 - Chlotrudis Awards, Best Screenplay (Donnie Darko)
Nominated
2001 - Sundance Film Festival, Grand Jury Prize (Donnie Darko)
2001 - Catalonian International Film Festival, Best Film (Donnie Darko)
2002 - Online Film Critics Society Awards, OFCS Award (Donnie Darko)
2002 - Independent Spirit Awards, Best First Feature (Donnie Darko)
2002 - Independent Spirit Awards, Best First Screenplay (Donnie Darko)
2002 - Chicago Film Critics Association Awards, Most Promising Director
2003 - Chlotrudis Awards, Best Director (Donnie Darko)
2006 - Cannes Film Festival, Golden Palm (Southland Tales)
External links
(Richard Kelly unofficial fansite)
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Richard Kelly.
