“It was the final great madness of Merchant Ivory”
MERCHANT IVORY (2023) is the first definitive feature documentary to lend new and compelling perspectives on the partnership, both professional and personal, of director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant and their primary associates, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and composer Richard Robbins. Footage from more than fifty interviews, clips, and archival material gives voice to the family of actors and technicians who helped define Merchant Ivory’s Academy Award-winning work of consummate quality and intelligence. With six Oscar winners among the notable artists participating, these close and often long-term collaborators intimately detail the transformational cinematic creativity and personal and professional drama of the wandering company that left an indelible impact on film culture.
“There has to be a special feeling about your work, a passion about your work, a commitment about your work, and if that is the case, then it never dies, you see. Anything is possible.”
OFFICIAL TRAILER
PRESS
‘Merchant Ivory’ Review: Illuminating Doc Examines the Private and Professional Sides of an Enduring Film Partnership
The prolific company founded by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory became synonymous with elegant literary adaptations in the 1980s and ‘90s. Read More
‘Cohen Media Group Acquires ‘Merchant Ivory,’ Documentary About Legendary Filmmaking Team, Ahead Of DOC NYC Premiere
Merchant Ivory became synonymous with quality filmmaking over a period of more than 40 years, earning particular acclaim for A Room with a View (1985), Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990), Howards End (1992), and The Remains of the Day(1993). They were life partners from 1961 until Merchant’s death in 2005. Read More
‘Merchant Ivory’ Doc Scores Theatrical Release (Variety EXCLUSIVE)
Cohen Media Group will give “Merchant Ivory,” a documentary about the professional and personal partnership of director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant and their production company — Merchant Ivory Productions — a theatrical release on Aug. 30 in select markets, including New York and Los Angeles, before expanding to theaters nationwide in September. Read More
‘Merchant Ivory’ Trailer: A Tribute to the Quietly Revolutionary Producers Behind Beloved Period Classics (IndieWire EXCLUSIVE)
Stephen Soucy pays tribute to this remarkable collaboration and what made the films of Merchant Ivory so distinctive and unreplicatable in his new documentary of the same name, “Merchant Ivory,” the trailer for which IndieWire is exclusively debuting below. Read More
MEET THE FILM TEAM
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Producer | Director | Writer
Stephen Soucy is a film director at Modernist |Film. Merchant Ivory, is his first feature-length documentary. Merchant Ivory will be released theatrically, domestically and worldwide, by Cohen Media Group. Other filmwork includes the short animated film, Rich Atmosphere: The Music of Merchant Ivory Films, the short documentary film, Art and Provincetown and the short narrative films, A Gifted Amateur and Slant.
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Editor | Writer | Producer
Jon Hart is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker with a specialty in profiles of artists and designers, including work for Sotheby’s and the New York Public Library with the production company Surrender Pictures. In 2018, he directed On Location with James Ivory, part of a series of architecture-related films for PBS, Design in Mind.
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Composer
Ryan Homsey is a versatile, award-winning American composer, equally at home writing for instrumental and choral ensembles, theater, dance, and film. His background in classical, electroacoustic, and popular music draws inspiration from his history as a professional ballet dancer. His works have been performed by JACK Quartet, PUBLIQuartet, Access Contemporary Music, and ensemble mise-en at such venues as the Taipei Cultural Center, the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, HERE Arts, and National Sawdust.
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Post Production Supervisor & Sound Mixer
Adam Scott is an audio producer from New York. He writes music and works as a sound designer for Paramount and ShiftWave. He also regularly collaborates with the Santa Barbara Center for Arts and Technology developing generative audio software for multimedia exhibitions. www.transcodeandrender.com
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Music Supervisor
Originally from Texas with a background in classical piano, Joe Guthrie began supervising music for film and television in Los Angeles in 1999. He has since supervised music for over 200 episodes of TV on networks including FOX, ABC, WB and CW as well as feature films for studios such as Touchstone, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Sundance and Warner Brothers.
“I seldom think of my films as any kind of an organized life’s work. I was here - maybe in New York, maybe Paris, maybe China even - or there, working with stories by this author, or that, maybe Ruth Jhabvala, maybe E.M.Forster, maybe Tama Janowitz, sometimes Kazuo Ishiguro. Always pretty much at my pleasure. So it’s with another kind of pleasure that I watch Stephen Soucy’s version of my creative life, of Merchant Ivory’s life, and see how their strands were woven together artistically, sometimes with my help, most often not. I like giving all the artists who work with us free rein.”
“What a wonderful documentary. Just bliss to watch.”
“It is brilliant! A great film about Merchant Ivory Productions, sexuality, friendship, directing and filmmaking. Should be on the curriculum at all film schools as well as on general release!”
