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Co-founder of the filmmaking team Merchant Ivory Productions, writer and director James Ivory previously received Best Director Academy Award nominations for THE REMAINS OF THE DAY, HOWARDS END and A ROOM WITH A VIEW. All three films also received Best Picture nominations. Ivory is a recipient of the Directors Guild of America's D.W. Griffith Lifetime Achievement Award.

Released in 1986 and based on E.M Forster's novel, A ROOM WITH A VIEW was nominated for eight Academy Awards, winning three, and was voted Best Film of 1986 by the Critic's Circle Film Section of Great Britain, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and the National Board of Review, as well as receiving the Donatello Prize for Best Foreign Language Picture and Best Director in Italy. Also based on a Forster novel, HOWARDS END received nine Academy Award nominations, won Best Picture at the BAFTA Awards and received awards for Best Picture, Best Actress (Emma Thompson) and Best Director from the National Board of Review. In 1994, THE REMAINS OF THE DAY, adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, garnered eight Academy Award nominations,

Ivory also directed MAURICE, in 1987, which received a Silver Lion Award for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival; SLAVES OF NEW YORK, based on the stories by Tama Janowitz; MR. & MRS. BRIDGE, for which Joanne Woodward received an Academy Award nomination; JEFFERSON IN PARIS; SURVIVING PICASSO; and A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER NEVER CRIES. He most recently directed THE GOLDEN BOWL, based on the Henry James novel and starring Nick Nolte, Uma Thurman, Kate Beckinsale and Anjelica Huston. Last year, Ivory, (along with Ismail Merchant and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala) received the Fellowship of the British Academy of Film and Television, one of the highest awards in film.

Born in Berkeley, California, Ivory received his Master's degree in Film from the University of Southern California. His first film was VENICE: THEME AND VARIATIONS, a half-hour documentary made as his thesis for his Master's degree. He went on to make THE SWORD AND THE FLUTE, based entirely on Indian miniature paintings in American collections and THE DELHI WAY, a portrait of the ancient Indian city.

In 1961, he teamed with Ismail Merchant to form Merchant Ivory Productions. Their first theatrical feature was THE HOUSEHOLDER, based on an early novel by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who also wrote the screenplay. Since then, Ivory's feature and television filmmaking career has taken him to Great Britain, France, Italy, back to India several times and to the United States. Among other films Ivory has directed are SHAKESPEARE WALLAH; the adaptations of Henry James' THE EUROPEANS and THE BOSTONIANS; and HEAT AND DUST, adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from her novel. He also directed QUARTET, shot in Paris and based on the Jean Rhys novel, and two critically acclaimed films for television: Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures and Autobiography of a Princess.