Asia Society is delighted to present a film screening and conversation with Oscar-winning filmmaker James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name (2017); Howards End (1992); The Delhi Way (1964)). Join us for A Cooler Climate, Mr. Ivory's 2022 film uncovering never-seen-before footage shot during a life-changing trip to Afghanistan.

James Ivory on A Cooler Climate

There is a reason for the title of my film, "A Cooler Climate." In the Spring of 1960 I was working in Delhi, where every day was hotter than the day before. I was in Delhi because the Asia Society had sent me to India to make a documentary about India's ancient capital, "The Delhi Way". The Asia Society felt too that they had given me a grant most likely large enough to shoot two films. "Go to Pakistan too", the said, "Or go to Sri Lanka." 

But the month of May in that part of the world was sweltering everywhere. I chose to fly off to Kabul, which was like Colorado (and also full of red stone). It was high, mountainous, and windy. I got on a plane of Aryan Airlines with my equipment, and in about an hour I was indeed in a cooler climate.

I knew nothing about Afghanistan. I didn't know it was a Muslim country, or had been visited by Alexander the Great's armies and had been harassed by Genghis Khan. Nor that its language was a form of Persian. I shot thousands of feet of sixteen millimeter footage. Once Delhi had been cooled off by its monsoon rains, I went back. But that is another story.

Film Details: A Cooler Climate 

Written & directed by James Ivory | Co-directed by Giles Gardner | Produced by Bertrand Faivre 

Genre: Documentary

Runtime: 75-min

Synopsis:

 In 1960, filmmaker James Ivory made a trip to Afghanistan to shoot scenes for a documentary. The film was never completed and the footage stayed in a box unseen for 60 years.
In 2022, aged 94, he decided to revisit this unique material as a means to look back at his younger self and to unravel how this unlikely journey far from his hometown in Oregon helped form the celebrated filmmaker he was to become.

James Ivory 

James Francis Ivory (born June 7, 1928) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. 
For many years, he worked extensively with Indian-born film producer Ismail Merchant, his domestic 
as well as professional partner, and with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. All three were 
principals in Merchant Ivory Productions, whose films have won seven Academy Awards; Ivory himself 
has been nominated for four Oscars, winning one.

Ivory’s directorial work includes A Room with a View (1985), Maurice (1987), Howards End (1992), 
and The Remains of the Day (1993). For his work on Call Me by Your Name (2017), which he wrote and 
produced, Ivory won awards for Best Adapted Screenplay from the Academy Awards, the British Academy 
of Film and Television Arts, the Writers Guild of America, the Critics’ Choice Awards, and the 
Scripter Awards, among others. Upon winning the Oscar and BAFTA at the age of 89, Ivory became the 
oldest-ever winner in any category for both awards.