Movies: Ismail Merchant

An aging silent movie comic star throws a lavish party to try and save his failing career....

Circa 1940 in Trinidad, still a British Colony, lives Ganesh Ramseyor, of East Indian origin, along with his wife, Leela. He longs to reach out to people, especially to Hindus, in order to promote the Hindu Faith, and be known as a writer. He does ge...

The story of a family troupe of English actors who travel around the towns and villages in India giving performances of Shakespearean plays. Through their travels we see the changing face of India as the old is replaced by the new, Maharajas become h...

Meet the denizens of New York City: artists, prostitutes, saints, and seers. All are aspiring toward either fame or oblivion, and hoping for love and acceptance. Instead they find high rents, faithless partners, and dead-end careers....

A small-town eccentric opens a café in her decaying home....

"Roseland" is made up of three stories, sometimes connecting, all set in the famed New York dance palace, and all having the same theme: finding the right dance partner....

An expatriated French novelist returns to Paris when she learns that her childhood home is being placed on the auction block....

A British family is trapped between culture, tradition, and the colonial sins of the past....

After an abandoned young woman in late 19th Century England is taken in by a rural couple with three handsome sons, tragic consequences result....

Britain's top pop artiste, Tom Pickle, travels to Bombay, India, circa 1960s to learn to play the sitar from renowned maestro Ustad Zafar Khan....

A gay young man is recruited into an illicit love triangle to watch a much older man’s sexual liaison, but ends up witnessing what turns out to be his murder. The next day the young man's opera diva mother informs him that his estranged father has be...

A young girl agrees to work in a center for girls who can't stay with their parents. She gets wrapped up in the plights of several of the girls, and tries to help them, but only gets herself into trouble with her parents and supervisor....

An English novelist travels to Bombay to watch one of her novels translated to film. She chases after the movie's leading man while the screenwriter chases after her....

In the Mumbai, India, tenement community of Pavanpul, young female courtesans sing, dance and perform sexual favors for male clientele. Directors James Ivory and Ismail Merchant blend documentary footage and dramatic reenactments in their exploration...

A tribe of primitive "mudpeople" encounter a croquet ball, rolling through their forest. Following it, they find themselves on a vast, deserted Long Island estate. Entering, they begin to become civilized and assume the stereotypical roles and dress ...

Historical context for The Remains of the Day....

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A documentary about making The Remains of the Day....

The filmmakers and lead actors of The Remains of the Day (1993) discuss how they came to make the film, and the subtle power of its execution....

Two teachers vie for the right to stage a play written by Jane Austen when she was twelve years old....