Sooni Taraporevala

Sooni Taraporevala (born 1957) is an Indian screenwriter, photographer, and filmmaker. She is known for the screenplays of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake (an adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's novel of the same name), and the Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay!, all directed by Mira Nair. She also adapted Rohinton Mistry's novel Such A Long Journey. She wrote the films Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, her directorial debut Little Zizou (2008), and Yeh Ballet (2020), a Netflix original film that she also directed.

Taraporevala wrote the screenplay for and directed her first feature film, Little Zizou (2008), an ensemble piece set in Mumbai. This film explores issues facing the Parsi community to which she belongs. It won the Silver Lotus Award (2009) at the National Film Awards for Best Film on Family Values.

Taraporevala was awarded the Padma Shri by Government of India in 2014. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Delhi and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Early life and education Taraporevala was born to a Parsi family in Mumbai in 1957. Her granduncle had been a studio photographer in Bombay, and her father Rumi had been an amateur photographer. She completed her schooling from Queen Mary School, Mumbai. Taraporevala got her first Instamatic camera at age 16. Taraporevala met Mira Nair as an undergraduate, leading to their longtime creative collaboration after Nair started directing.

Taraporevala joined the Cinema Studies Department at New York University for further studies and received her MA in Film Theory and Criticism in 1981. She returned to India to work as a freelance still photographer. She shot her early work from this period on a Leica and her father's Nikon.

Screenplays Taraporevala wrote the screenplays for Salaam Bombay! and Mississippi Masala, both directed by Mira Nair. Other projects with Nair include the screenplay for My Own Country, based on the book by Abraham Verghese, as well as The Namesake (2006), a cinematic adaptation of Pulitzer–winning writer Jhumpa Lahiri's novel, The Namesake. for Anand Gandhi's Memesys Culture Lab.

In 2020 she wrote and directed a feature film based on her documentary. The Netflix Original film Yeh Ballet, produced by Siddharth Roy Kapur and Roy Kapur Films, can be seen on Netflix worldwide.

Photography In 1982, during a break from college, she met photographer Raghubir Singh. He looked at her work, which included photographs of her extended Parsi family, and suggested that she work on a book about the Parsi community. This was a catalyst for her extensive work of documentation of the Parsi community. An updated edition was published in 2004.

Her photographs have been exhibited in India, the US, France and Britain, including London's Tate Modern gallery.

She has had solo shows at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, Chemould Prescott Road in Mumbai, and the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Delhi. Her work is in the permanent collections of the NGMA Delhi and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

In 2017/2018, the Whitworth in Manchester exhibited her photographic show Home in the City, Bombay 1977 Mumbai 2017. It was selected by The Guardian as one of the UK's top 5 shows.

A larger version of Home in the City (with 102 photographs) was exhibited at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, from 14 through 31 October 2017. An accompanying book, Home in the city: Bombay 1977 Mumbai 2017, was released with essays by authors Pico Iyer and Salman Rushdie. The exhibit traveled to the Sunaparanta, Goa Centre for the Arts in Altinho, Goa, opening there on 11 November 2017.

Filmography

Awards 1988: Lillian Gish Award with Mira Nair, at the Los Angeles Women in Film Festival, for Excellence in Feature Film, for Salaam Bombay! 1991: Golden Osella (Best Original Screenplay) 49th Venice International Film Festival: Mississippi Masala 2008: Time/Warner Best Screenplay Award at Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council, New York, for Little Zizou 2008: Best Director at Mahindra Indo- American Arts Council, New York, for Little Zizou 2008: Best Producer at Asian Festival of 1ST Films, Singapore, for Little Zizou 2009: Best Director of Experience Section of Levante International Film Festival, Italy, for Little Zizou 2009: Audience Choice Award at Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, (IFFLA) for Little Zizou 2014: Padma Shri by Government of India 2020: Filmfare nomination for Best Film Web Original, for Yeh Ballet

Memberships Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (2017–present) Writers Guild of America (1989–present)