Gus Van Sant

Born: July 24 1952
Were: Louisville, Kentucky, USA

The darling of the independent American movie scene came perilously close to mainstream recognition when he was Oscar-nominated for Good Will Hunting.

However, he has continued to plough a very singular furrough from the cult hits My Own Private Idaho through to the cause celebre of Cannes, Elephant.

A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, he served notice on his talent with his debut feature Mala Noche, which wowed the LA Film Critics Awards.

A series of shorts followed and then came the addict movie Drugstore Cowboy with Matt Dillon and the cult hit My Own Private Idaho with Keanu Reeves.

Even Cowgirls Get The Blues was an off-kilter romantic comedy starring Uma Thurman which he followed with To Die For, featuring a career-turning performance from Nicole Kidman.

Next came Good Will Hunting, which was nominated for no less than nine Academy Awards (and won two of them including best actor for Robin Williams).

Van Sant then confounded the public by making a colour version of Hitchcock's Psycho in a frame-by-frame imitation of the original.

Asked why he replied: "So no-one else would have to."

He was back on more conventional territory with Finding Forrester, starring Sean Connery as a curmudgeonly college professor.

Less successful was Gerry, in which he teamed up with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck to make a stranded-in-the-desert saga.

Elephant - his controversial documentary about America's school shootings - thrust him firmly back into the spotlight and made him darling of Cannes 2003.