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Part of Shane Salerno's film about The Catcher in the Rye author is screened at Cannes after nine years in production

It has been veiled in mystery and speculation, and has been nine years in the making. But now a few minutes of the highly anticipated documentary about Jd Salinger by Shane Salerno – chiefly known as a writer of action films including Savages and Alien vs Predator – has been shown at the Cannes film festival.

Through a bafflingly fast-paced montage of clips, showing fragments of interviews with figures such as Tom Wolfe, El Doctorow and the late Gore Vidal, the preview hinted at, rather than delivered, revelations about the writer's existence after he withdrew from public life in 1965, living in seclusion and no longer publishing though, it is speculated, writing feverishly until his death in 2010.

Asked whether the film, which is due for release in the autumn, contained any...

★☆☆☆☆ There seemed to be much promise to Uncle David (2010), co-directed by Mike Nicholls (the man behind the 2008 TV special Living with Boy George), Gary Reich and David Hoyle, who also wrote and stars in the film along side fellow co-writer Ashley Ryder. The story (what there is of it) concerns David (Hoyle), an ageing campsite queen who lives in a caravan by the sea, and his young nephew Ashley (Ryder) who comes to stay with him. As the weekend progresses so does David and Ashley's relationship in a way that is hardly natural for an uncle and his nephew.

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He killed off his character Divine David at an ice rink in 2000, but Hoyle continues to bite back with an extreme new feature film featuring a porn star and a caravan on the Isle of Sheppey

News that David Hoyle was making a feature film provoked intrigue last year on London's cabaret circuit, where he is something of a legend. Born in Blackpool, Hoyle came to prominence in the 1990s as the Divine David, a kind of anti-drag queen whose lacerating social commentary – targeting both bourgeois Britain and the materialistic-hedonistic gay scene, which he called "the biggest suicide cult in history" – was offset by breathtaking instances of self-recrimination and even self-harm. Following a couple of outré late-night Channel 4 shows and a cameo in Velvet Goldmine, Hoyle killed the Divine David off during a spectacular show at the Streatham Ice Arena in 2000 and retreated to Manchester for "a period of...