My Way Home

My Childhood

The first part of Bill Douglas' influential trilogy harks back to his impoverished upbringing in early-'40s Scotland. Cinema was his only escape - he paid for it with the money he made from returning empty jam jars - and this escape is reflected most closely at this time of his life as an eight-year-old living on the breadline with his half-brother and sick grandmother in a poor mining village.

My Ain Folk

When Jamie's maternal grandmother dies, he and his brother Tommy are separated - Tommy is taken off to a welfare home and Jamie goes to live with his other grandmother and uncle. His life is far from happy, filled with silence, rejection and bouts of violence.

My Ain Folk

When Jamie's maternal grandmother dies, he and his brother Tommy are separated - Tommy is taken off to a welfare home and Jamie goes to live with his other grandmother and uncle. His life is far from happy, filled with silence, rejection and bouts of violence.

My Childhood

The first part of Bill Douglas' influential trilogy harks back to his impoverished upbringing in early-'40s Scotland. Cinema was his only escape - he paid for it with the money he made from returning empty jam jars - and this escape is reflected most closely at this time of his life as an eight-year-old living on the breadline with his half-brother and sick grandmother in a poor mining village.

Comrades

The story of "The Tolpuddle Martyrs". A group of 19th century English farm labourers who formed one of the first trade unions and started a campaign to receive fair wages.

Carry On Cleo

Two Britons—inventor Hengist Pod, and Horse, a brave and cunning fighter—are captured and enslaved by invading Romans and taken to Rome. One of their first encounters in Rome leaves Hengist being mistaken for a fighter, and gets drafted into the Royal Guard to protect Julius Caesar.

Come Dancing

Celebrated filmmaker Bill Douglas’s early student short follows two men who meet in a cafe on a Southend pier. Glances, body language and very brief snatches of lewd dialogue suggest a pick-up, but the atmosphere soon darkens and events take an unexpected twist.

Sleepwalker

Saxon Logan's extraordinary 49 minute featurette pitches four people into a class war situation with a vicious sting in the tale.

Still Life

An elderly woman is admitted to an asylum and all her possessions are removed by the council. The idea came from Peter Jewell, who was working as a social worker at the time, but is reminiscent of Bill's own family history.

Small World

A rare “talkie” displaying Bill’s gift for dialogue, Small World is a comedy of manners about two married couples who meet by chance at an outdoor café and think they have met before.

Gracemary

A young woman runs to catch the last post with her weekly pools coupon, whilst imagining a more glamorous life for herself.

Fever

Displaying the cinematic influence of Bunuel and Cocteau, and inspired by a short story by French writer JMG Le Clézio, Bill’s most experimental short depicts a psychiatric patient who travels to Speakers’ Corner, Hyde Park, to warn anyone who will listen about the impending nuclear holocaust.

The Water Cress File

Playing with the tropes of the spy genre, The Water Cress File charts the progress of a mysterious briefcase, passed between several characters on the streets of Soho and, in a metaphysical flourish, into a film showing in the Pavilion cinema.

Home and Away

A young boy away at boarding school struggles when his mother and father split up.

Woman in the Park

A Hitchcockian psychodrama about an introverted man who pursues a woman with whom he becomes obsessed, demonstrating Bill’s improving grasp of advanced film language.

The Ring of Truth

Set in the Necropolis graveyard, Glasgow. A comic and magical tale about the meaning of life and a hunt for a missing diamond ring. An ex-B movie starlet and her daughter search for the ring, lost many years ago whilst the mother was making love with a travelling salesman. Their antics are observed by a small boy who is spending the day with his Grandfather, the custodian of the graveyard. As the story unfolds, the day at the graveyard moves from comedy and tragedy to magic, fantasy and resurrection

Five Times Two

As young French couple Gilles and Marion officially separate, we see, in reverse order, the milestone moments in their relationship: Gilles revealing his unfaithfulness at a tense dinner party; Marion giving birth to their premature son while Gilles is elsewhere; Gilles and Marion's joyous wedding; and, finally, the fateful moment when they meet as acquaintances at an Italian beach resort, and their love affair begins.

Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, accepts. After the unique beginning to their love affair, the well-connected and volatile artist assimilates Dyer into his circle of eccentric friends, as Dyer's struggle with addiction strains their bond.

Theorem

A wealthy Italian household is turned upside down when a handsome stranger arrives, seduces every family member and then disappears. Each has an epiphany of sorts, but none can figure out who the seductive visitor was or why he came.

The Northerners

A black comedy set in the 1960s in a small Netherlands community, populated by a cast of eccentrics, all of whom hold a range of sexual obsessions and frustrated desires.

Before Night Falls

Spanning several decades, this powerful biopic offers a glimpse into the life of famed Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, an artist who was vilified for his homosexuality in Fidel Castro's Cuba.