Autobiography of a Princess + A Cooler Climate

Combined Programme

IFFR 2023

COMBINED PROGRAMME:

Two films by James Ivory, The Autobiography of a Princess was perhaps the model for A Cooler Climate.

Autobiography of a Princess

An Indian princess in self-exile celebrates her birthday with her father’s former tutor, watching documentaries that show the beauty of her native country in the time prior to independence. A personal favourite of James Ivory, who seems to have tailored his own film autobiography some time after this gem.

A Cooler Climate

In 1960, James Ivory visited Afghanistan to make a documentary – which was never finished. The materials of that project form the backbone for this look at Ivory's upbringing and first steps in cinema: an essay on history, memory and the vanities of civilisation-building, not to mention desire.

Combined Programme

IFFR 2023