[close] Richard Kelly is an American film director and writer, best known for 2001's Donnie Darko. Kelly grew up in Midlothian, Virginia where he attended Midlothian High School before getting a scholarship and moving to Southern California to study at the USC School of Cinema-Television. He made two short films at USC, The Goodbye Place and Visceral Matter, before graduating in 1997.

He has written scripts for film adaptations of Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and Louis Sachar's Holes, although neither was produced. 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, Southland Tales, a rough cut of which screened at Cannes Film Festival 2006, was released November 16th, 2007 and stars Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Kevin Smith and Miranda Richardson.
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