My Childhood My Ain Folk Film/Video BILL DOUGLAS: A MASTER OF POETIC CINEMA MY CHILDHOOD DIRECTED BY BILL DOUGLAS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2002 8 PM AUDITORIUM $6 ($4 WALKER MEMBERS) BILL DOUGLAS: A MASTER OF POETIC CINEMA FEBRUARY: 13| 15 In the first installment of the trilogy, brothers Jamie and Tommy are raised in squalid and impoverished surroundings during World War II by their maternal grandmother, a Dickensian figure shrouded in black. Uncertain of his parentage and with his mother in a mental hospital, Jamie must learn to rely solely on himself when his grandmother dies. Douglas sensitively feels out the bleak terrain of human suffering by seeking small moments of beauty or transcendence, tiny moments of "touch" through which to convey a character's travels through the world. 1972, U.K., B/W, 16mm, 48 minutes. with MY AIN FOLK DIRECTED BY BILL DOUGLAS Tommy is taken away by welfare workers and Jamie escapes to the house of the father who abandoned him. Without his brother, Jamie leads a desperate, solitary life. His paternal grandmother takes care of him while his father keeps his distance, but she treats him with erratic cruelty. Her harshness softens slightly when Jamie's grandfather returns, but this does not save him from misery or loneliness. Douglas' childhood rendered on film is like a tangle of emotions laid bare. It is like a confession, not from the guilty to the redeemer, but from one heart to another. 1973, U.K., B/W, 16mm, 55 minutes.