Heat and Dust (1983) is a Merchant Ivory Productions award winning film, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala based upon her novel, Heat and Dust. It was directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant. Ivory performed tanpura for score music with Zakir Hussain's tabla.
According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications there was "a cycle of film and television productions which emerged during the first half of the 1980s, which seemed to indicate Britain's growing preoccupation with India, Empire and a particular aspect of British cultural history" . In addition to Heat and Dust, this cycle also included Gandhi (1982), The Jewel in the Crown (1984), The Far Pavilions (1984) and A Passage to India (1984). The film was entered into the 1983 Cannes Film Festival.
