MERCHANT IVORY Trailer: New Documentary Pays Tribute to Legendary Filmmaking Duo

The decades-long partnership of director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant is endearingly profiled in the new documentary Merchant Ivory. The titular words are not only synonymous with the legendary duo, but also the string of iconic, sophisticated period pieces they made together. Director Stephen Soucy pays tribute to the two men who were partners in both business and life, as well as their distinctive and prestigious filmography. Featuring testimonies from collaborators such as Emma Thompson (who won the Best Actress Oscar for the duo’s adaptation of Howard’s End), Hugh Grant, Helena Bonham Carter, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Anthony Hopkins, it details the making of their various accomplished works that makes them worthy of revisiting and appreciating even more. The lengthy slate of Merchant Ivory’s singular films includes adaptations such as Maurice, A Room with a View, Remains of the Day, The Bostonians, and Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name – for which Ivory himself won the Oscar for Adapted Screenplay.

Here’s the official synopsis:

MERCHANT IVORY 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.

It had its world premiere at DOC NYC 2023 and was an official selection of the Palm Springs International Film Festival earlier this year. Cohen Media Group will release it in NYC’s Quad Cinema on August 27 and will roll it out nationwide in the following weeks.

Check out the trailer and poster below.

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