Donald Rosenfeld is an American film producer who was the president of Merchant Ivory Productions from 1986 through 1998. Rosenfeld was the lead producer on the major Merchant Ivory films created in what is now considered their golden decade. Along with Ismail Merchant, James Ivory and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Rosenfeld worked on the creation of the well-received films Mr. and Mrs. Bridge , Howards End (8 Academy Award nominations), and The Remains of the Day (9 Academy Award nominations), among others. Rosenfeld was the youngest producer ever to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1992. He's now the publisher of County Highway, a magazine in the form of a 19th-century newspaper founded by David Samuels and Walter Kirn.
From 1986 to 1998, Rosenfeld ran Merchant Ivory Productions, working for films including Slaves of New York to Surviving Picasso.
Rosenfeld has continued to produce major motion pictures, following his Merchant Ivory years. Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life won the top prize at the 64th Cannes Film Festival. The films Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day and Forty Shades of Blue won the top prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
In partnership with Andreas Roald, Rosenfeld founded Sovereign Films in 2008. They produced Effie Gray, written by and starring two-time Oscar winner, Emma Thompson, as well as Cradle of Champions and Terrence Malick's Voyage of Time.
Rosenfeld resides in New York City. He is also a collector of contemporary art, primarily paintings and photography.
Badlands is a 1973 American neo-noir period crime drama film written, produced and directed by Terrence Malick, in his directorial debut. The film stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, and follows Holly Sargis (Spacek), a 15-year old who goes on a killing spree with her partner, Kit Carruthers (Sheen). The film also stars Warren Oates and Ramon Bieri. While the story is fictional, it is loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958.
Terrence Frederick Malick is an American filmmaker. His films include Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998), for which he received Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award nominations, The New World (2005), and The Tree of Life (2011), which garnered him another Best Director Oscar nomination and the Palme d'Or at the 64th Cannes Film Festival.
Merchant Ivory Productions is a film company founded in 1961 by producer Ismail Merchant (1936–2005) and director James Ivory. Merchant and Ivory were life and business partners from 1961 until Merchant's death in 2005. During their time together, they made 44 films. The films were for the most part produced by Merchant and directed by Ivory, and 23 of them were scripted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927–2013) in some capacity. The films were often based upon novels or short stories, particularly the work of Henry James, E. M. Forster, and Jhabvala herself.
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was a British and American novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of film director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant.
Ismail Merchant was an Indian film producer. He worked for many years in collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included film director James Ivory as well as screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Together they made acclaimed film adaptations from the novels of E.M. Forster and Henry James. Merchant received the BAFTA Award for Best Film for A Room with a View (1985), and Howards End (1992). He received Academy Award nominations for Best Live Action Short Film for The Creation of a Woman (1959) and for Best Picture for A Room with a View (1985), Howards End (1992), and The Remains of the Day (1993).
James Francis Ivory is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Ivory along with Indian film producer Ismail Merchant, his domestic as well as professional partner, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, were the principals in Merchant Ivory Productions. Together they made film adaptations from the novels of E.M. Forster, Henry James and others. Their body of work is celebrated for its elegance, sophistication, literary fidelity, strong performances, as well as its complex themes and rich characters.
The Wild Party is a 1975 American comedy-drama film directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant for Merchant Ivory Productions. Loosely based on Joseph Moncure March's narrative poem of the same name, the screenplay is written by Walter Marks, who also composed the score. The plot follows an aging silent movie comic star of the 1920s named Jolly Grimm attempts a comeback by staging a party to show his new film.
Roseland is a 1977 Merchant Ivory Productions' anthology film with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. It was directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant.
Surviving Picasso is a 1996 American biographical drama film directed by James Ivory and starring Anthony Hopkins as the famous painter Pablo Picasso. It was produced by Ismail Merchant and David L. Wolper. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's screenplay was loosely based on the 1988 biography Picasso: Creator and Destroyer by Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington. It was a box-office bomb, grossing $2 million at the box office against a budget of $16 million.
In Custody/Muhafiz is a 1993 film by Merchant Ivory Productions. It was directed by Ismail Merchant, with screenplay by Anita Desai and Shahrukh Husain. It is based upon Desai's 1984 Booker Prize nominated novel In Custody.
The Householder is a 1963 film by Merchant Ivory Productions, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory, and direction of James Ivory. It is based upon the 1960 novel of the same name by Jhabvala.
The Proprietor is a 1996 film. It is a U.S.-French co-production Merchant Ivory film, directed by Ismail Merchant for Jeanne Moreau's request.
Richard Stephen Robbins was an American-born composer, best known for his motion picture scores for the Merchant Ivory films.
Ira Sachs is an American filmmaker. Sachs started his career directing short films such as Vaudeville (1991) and Lady (1993) before making his feature film debut with The Delta (1997). Sachs later won acclaim for his dramatic independent films Forty Shades of Blue (2005), Keep the Lights On (2012), Love Is Strange (2014), Little Men (2016), and Passages (2023).
William Eggleston in the Real World is a documentary film about the photographer William Eggleston directed by Michael Almereyda and released in 2005.
The City of Your Final Destination is a 2009 American romantic drama film directed by James Ivory and starring Anthony Hopkins, Laura Linney, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Omar Metwally, Hiroyuki Sanada and Norma Aleandro. It was written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and based on the eponymous novel by Peter Cameron.
Caldecot "Cotty" Chubb is an American film producer who has produced films such as Eve's Bayou, Hoffa, Unthinkable, The Crow, Dark Blue and Pootie Tang. He won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature in 1997 for Eve's Bayou and was a nominee for To Sleep with Anger in 1991. Both of those films have been admitted to the National Film Archive of the Library of Congress.
Jawal Nga is a film producer and writer based in New York City.
John Nicholas Calley was an American film studio executive and producer. He was quite influential during his years at Warner Bros., where he worked from 1968 to 1981, and "produced a film a month, on average, including commercial successes like The Exorcist and Superman." During his seven years at Sony Pictures starting in 1996, five of which he was chairman and chief executive, he was credited with "reinvigorat[ing]" that major film studio.
Terrence Malick is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. Throughout his career, which has spanned over four decades, he has directed nine feature films and one documentary. He has also written scripts for other directors, and since the 1990s has acted as producer and executive producer on numerous projects.