Indian film producer and director Ismail Merchant was BOTD in 1936. Born Ismail Rahman in Mumbai to a Gujarati Muslim family, he grew up during the violent Partition of India, in which his family refused to move to Pakistan. After studying at the University of Bombay, he moved to New York City, where he pursued a career in film. His short film The Creation of Woman was screened at the Cannes Festival and nominated for an Oscar. In 1959, he met filmmaker James Ivory who became his creative and romantic life partner. They formed Merchant-Ivory Productions in 1961, producing nearly 40 films. Their early films The Householder, Shakespeare Wallah and Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie’s Pictures explored conflicts between English and Indian sensibilities, culminating in Heat and Dust, based on Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s novel. They became better known in the 1970s with their adaptations of Henry James‘ novels The Europeans and The Bostonians (the latter starring Vanessa Redgrave as an unhappy lesbian). Their breakthrough came in 1979 with The Europeans, a witty adaptation of James‘ novel scripted by Jhabvala, who became their regular screenwriter. They achieved global success with their adaptation of E. M. Forster‘s novel A Room With a View, nominated for eight Oscars including best picture and best director and winning three. Their 1987 film Maurice, an adaptation of Forster’s posthumously-published gay romance, was highly praised for its sympathetic depiction of gay desire and generous full-frontal nudity. They scored back-to-back successes with 1992’s Howard’s End, their third Forster adaptation, and The Remains of the Day, based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel about a self-sacrificial butler in service to a Nazi-sympathising aristocrat. Renowned for his charm and powers of persuasion, the extroverted Merchant made an odd couple with the timid, softly-spoken Ivory, a disparity that both acknowledged as a key ingredient of their professional success. In later films, he frequently acted as second-unit director, eventually directing his first feature film In Custody in 1993. He died in 2005, aged 68, shortly before the release of his final produced film The White Countess. In 2021, Ivory published a memoir detailing their open relationship and Merchant’s tempestuous long-term affair with composer Richard Robbins.