Although Ismail Merchant was born in Bombay, he has lived and worked for most of his life in the West. Merchant's first film was a theatrical short, THE CREATION OF WOMAN, which was nominated in 1961 for an Academy Award and was an official entry from the United States in the Cannes Film Festival that same year. While en route to the festival, Merchant met James Ivory, who agreed to form a partnership, Merchant Ivory Productions, to make English-language theatrical films in India for the international market.
Attracted by India's visual beauty, as well as by the opportunity to finance his films with frozen rupee accounts of major American distributors, Merchant produced THE HOUSEHOLDER, the team's first collaboration with writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (SHAKESPEARE WALLAH, THE GURU, and BOMBAY TALKIE). For forty years, Merchant Ivory Productions has enjoyed one of the most productive collaborations in cinema, making such films as ROSELAND, THE EUROPEANS, QUARTET, HEAT AND DUST, A ROOM WITH A VIEW, MR. AND MRS. BRIDGE, HOWARDSEND, THE REMAINS OF THE DAY, JEFFERSON IN PARIS, SURVIVING PICASSO, and A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER NEVER CRIES.
In addition to producing, Merchant is a director. His directing credits include a short film entitled MAHATMA AND THE MAD BOY, a television feature THE COURTESANS OF BOMBAY, and his first theatrical feature, IN CUSTODY, which won four National Awards from the government of India, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Costumes, and Best Production Design. Additional directing credits are THE PROPRIETOR, starring Jeanne Moreau, COTTON MARY, starring Madhur Jaffrey, Greta Scacchi, and James Wilby, and THE MYSTIC MASSEUR, based on the novel of V.S Naipaul, shot in Trinidad in the winter of 2001.
THE GOLDEN BOWL marked the fortieth anniversary of Merchant's career in film production, a career which has already earned the Merchant Ivory team a place in the GUINESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS for the longest partnership in independent cinema. In addition to the numerous accolades Merchant has won in the world of film, he is also an Honorary Doctor of Arts at Bard College, New York, has been honored by the Mayor of New York, and was made a Commandeur des arts et des lettres by the French Government in 1996.
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