Director James Ivory andproducer Ismail Merchant have begun production on Le Divorce, a contemporary social comedy about two Americansisters in Paris, which is being fully financed by Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Playing the two sisters areKate Hudson and Naomi Watts and the cast also includes Glenn Close, StockardChanning, Sam Waterston, Bebe Neuwirth, Leslie Caron, Romain Duris, MelvilPoupaud, Jean-Marc Barr and Lambert Wilson.

The film is about one sisterleaping into an affair with the married uncle of her sister's soon to beex-husband. Set for release in 2003, the film is scheduled to shoot until June1.Ivory wrote the script from Diane Johnson's novel with his longtimecollaborator Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Merchant is producing with Michael Schiffer.Ted Field, Erica Higgins and Scott Kroopf of Radar Pictures are executiveproducing, while Claudia Lewis, executive vice president of production forSearchlight, is overseeing the production for Fox.