NI drama inspires new film

The director and cast are in Cannes promoting the film

A movie partly inspired by a BBC Northern Ireland drama has been shown at the Cannes film festival.

American director Gus Van Sant's film Elephant is named after a 1989 programme by filmmaker Alan Clarke which depicted a series of random sectarian murders in Northern Ireland.

The idea was that by the end, the killings had become as easy to ignore as an elephant in the living room.

Van Sant's film tells a story of everyday high school life that turns suddenly to tragedy with a high school shooting.

He said there was a parallel to the violence depicted in the Northern Ireland movie with the killing sprees at US high schools in the late 1990s, notably Columbine in Colorado, where two students killed 13 people before committing suicide.

"American school shootings had reached an all-time high. I wanted to make something that tried to capture the atmosphere of kids going to school at the time," he said.

The Good Will Hunting director said his film did not try to solve the riddle of school violence but encouraged its audience to ponder its many causes.

The Northern Ireland film Elephant caused much controversy at the time, as it depicted 18 murders without any context or narrative.

It was produced by Danny Boyle, who later went on to make Trainspotting (1996) and 28 Days Later (2002).