THE work of Derbyshire's most successful film director will be celebrated at a mini festival of British cinema at Quad this weekend.

The Derby arts centre will be paying tribute to Robert Stevenson during its This Is England festival.

Stevenson was born in Buxton in 1905, educated at Cambridge and began writing scripts before heading to Hollywood and becoming a major film director, mostly for the Disney Studios.

In 1944 he wrote the screenplay and directed Jane Eyre starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine before starting a highly-lucrative career with Disney. He became Walt's favourite director and was responsible for helming Mary Poppins, The Absent Minded Professor, The Love Bug and Bedknobs and Broomsticks – some of Disney's biggest hits of the era. He received an Oscar nomination for Mary Poppins, the only director of a Disney film ever to do so.

Quad will be celebrating the life and work of Stevenson with a special screening of his 1937 classic King Solomon's Mines. The film will have an extended introduction, Robert Stevenson: Derbyshire's Disney Dynamo, by writer Michael Simpson, author of Hitchhiker: A Biography Of Douglas Adams and the forthcoming Elsa Lanchester: Bride Of The Hunchback.

Michael said: "Robert Stevenson was very shy and didn't like publicity so he remains somewhat of a mystery.

"We know nothing about his early life or how long he spent in Derbyshire.

"We do know that he was one of 12 children and so we are hoping that if he has nieces or nephews still living in Derbyshire, who would be in their 70s or 80s now, that they might come forward and tell us about him.

"Certainly he is an unsung hero and deserves to be celebrated. In 1976 Variety produced a list of the most successful directors of all time and he came out on top because all his Disney films made so much money. But everybody said 'Robert who?' That's because all his films were marketed as Disney films, not Robert Stevenson movies. But he fitted in with Disney well because he liked to take a back seat and it was always the Disney name that was pushed forward. But almost everybody has seen one of his movies, even if they have never heard of him."

In King Solomon's Mines (Cert U), adventurer and hunter Allan Quartermain and his enigmatic guide help a young Irish woman locate her missing father in unexplored Africa. This first adaptation of H Rider Haggard's classic novel is a rousing adventure yarn. Paul Robeson and Cedric Hardwicke star.

The film can be seen on Sunday at 4pm.

It's one of 11 films in the festival being screened from tonight until Sunday.

From classic cinema to contemporary interpretations of English life, the weekend of films will explore Englishness in many and varied contexts.

The first film at 6.05pm tonight is the classic Ealing comedy Kind Hearts And Coronets (Cert U), with Alec Guinness taking on multiple roles. That's followed at 8.15pm with East Midlands director Shane Meadows' This Is England (Cert 18) and with a screening of the cult favourite Withnail & I (Cert 15) at 10.30pm.

Tomorrow at 1pm you can see the 1937 Will Hay comedy classic Oh Mr Porter! (Cert U) followed by a Cinekids screening of the 1971 version of The Railway Children (Cert U) starring Bernard Cribbins. Brief Encounter (Cert U) follows at 6pm with Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson starring in David Lean's all-time great romance. Two Derbyshire greats join forces for The Shout (Cert 15), at 8.30pm. The late Sir Alan Bates and Quad's current patron John Hurt, both born and brought up in the county, star. The day ends at 10.30pm with Vincent Price in Theatre Of Blood (Cert 18).

On Sunday at 1.30pm there's another chance to see The Railway Children at 1.30pm, then it's King Solomon's Mines at 4pm and Basil Dearden's 1959 offering, Sapphire, at 6.30pm. The festival ends with In The Loop, the recent political satire, at 8.45pm.

For more information or to book seats, call 01332 29060, or go to www.derbyquad.co.uk.