In honour of what would have been Bill Douglas’s 90th birthday we are presenting Jack Archer’s new documentary on one of Britain’s greatest filmmakers, Bill Douglas My Best Friend. This screening is in association with The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University of Exeter, the UK’s leading museum of moving image history, founded from the collection that Bill put together with his best friend, Peter Jewell.

The story of the extraordinary friendship between Scottish film maker Bill Douglas and his lifelong friend and collaborator Peter Jewell.

Bill Douglas was Scotland’s finest director, celebrated by other great film makers including Lynne Ramsay, Lenny Abrahamson, Satajit Ray and Yuliya Solntseva. In his short career he made four films, an autobiographical trilogy My Childhood, My Ain Folk and My Way Home about his appalling childhood and Comrades an epic about a momentous moment in English history. Every shot in these films is an art work and every sequence a poem.

Bill’s life was transformed when he was on National Service in the Egyptian desert and met the man who would become his lifelong friend, Peter Jewell. The two men had very different backgrounds but they formed a unique bond that channelled a tremendous creative energy. In this film Peter reminisces about the life he shared with Bill in their tiny Soho flat filled with cinema memorabilia. Their love of the movies lead them to start experimenting with an 8mm camera. Peter’s memories and musings about the legacy Bill left behind are illustrated with these never-before-seen short films.