COMBINED PROGRAMME:
Two films by James Ivory, The Autobiography of a Princess was perhaps the model for A Cooler Climate.
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.
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.
In this combined programme
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Autobiography of a Princess
Little-seen teleplay on memory and displacement – perhaps the model for Ivory’s A Cooler Climate!
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A Cooler Climate
An essay on history, memory and gay desire developed from the materials of an unfinished documentary.
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three sparks
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Thiiird
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