‘Don DeLillo gave me his blessing’: film director Ben Rivers on how fan mail from the Underworld author led to his latest work (opens in new tab)

When Rivers received a surprise letter from DeLillo, it encouraged him to set the author’s one-act play in an adult-free, postapocalyptic worldNine-year-old girls reciting the gnomic prose of Don DeLillo – it sounds like an extreme English detention, but for film-maker this was the foundation of his new movie, and the culmination of an unlikely friendship with the literary titan. DeLillo is an almost mythical figure of contemporary literature. His prose is precisely hewn, his narratives sophi...