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Sooni Taraporevala (born 1957) is an Indian screenwriter, photographer and filmmaker who is the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay! (1988), all directed by Mira Nair.[1] She also adapted Rohinton Mistry's novel Such A Long Journey[2] (2000) wrote the films Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar her directorial debut Little Zizou[3] as well as her latest film Yeh Ballet[4] (2020) A Netflix Original that she wrote and directed.

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Sooni Taraporevala
Sooni Taraporevala in 2010
Born	1957 (age 64–65) Mumbai
Nationality	India
Occupation	screenwriter, film director, photographer
Years active	1988–present

She directed her first feature film, based on a screenplay of her own, an ensemble piece set in Mumbai, in Spring, 2007, entitled Little Zizou.[5][6] This film explores issues facing the Parsi community to which she belongs.

In 2010 Little Zizou won a National award for Best Film on Family Values[7]

She was awarded the Padma Shri by Government of India in 2014.[8] 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. She completed her schooling from Queen Mary School, Mumbai. She received a full scholarship to attend Harvard University as an undergraduate. Though she majored in English and American Literature, she took many film courses including filmmaking taught by Alfred Guzzetti.[9] She met Mira Nair as an undergraduate, leading to their longtime creative collaboration. Next she joined the Cinema Studies Department at New York University, and after receiving her MA in Film Theory and Criticism, in 1981, she returned to India to work as a freelance still photographer.[10][11][12] She returned to Los Angeles in 1988 and worked as a screenwriter, writing commissioned screenplays for a wide variety of studios including Universal, HBO and Disney. She moved back to India for good in 1992 .

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.[8]

Her other produced credits include the film Such a Long Journey based on the novel Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry and directed by Sturla Gunnarson, and the screenplay for the film Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, directed by Jabbar Patel for the Government of India and the National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC).^{[citation needed]}

In 2016 she directed a 14-minute documentary virtual reality film Yeh Ballet[13] 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, who, after looking at her work, which included photographs of her extended Parsi family, suggested she work on a book about the Parsi community. This started her extensive work of photo documentation of the Parsi community.[9]

In 2000, she self-published Parsis, the Zoroastrians of India: a photographic journey, 1980-2000 about the traditionally closed off community since their persecution in Persia, the first and only visual documentation of the Parsi community.[14] An updated edition was published in 2004.[15]

Her photographs have been exhibited in India, the US, France and Britain, including London's Tate Modern gallery.^{[citation needed]}

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 MET 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 UK's top 5 shows.^{[citation needed]}

A larger version of Home in the City with 102 photographs was exhibited at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, from 14 through 31 October 2017.[16] An accompanying book, Home in the city: Bombay 1977 – Mumbai 2017, was released with essays by Pico Iyer and Salman Rushdie.[17] It then traveled to the Sunaparanta, Goa Centre for the Arts in Altinho, Goa, opening there on 11 November 2017.^{[citation needed]}

Filmography

Year	Film	Director	Writer	Notes
1988	Salaam Bombay![18]	No	Yes
1991	Mississippi Masala[19]	No	Yes
1998	Such a Long Journey[20]	No	Yes
	My Own Country	No	Yes	Television film
2000	Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar[21]	No	Yes
2006	The Namesake[22]	No	Yes
2009	Little Zizou	Yes	Yes
2020	Yeh Ballet[23]	Yes	Yes

Awards

• 1988: Lillian Gish award for Excellence in Film from Women in Film, for the screenplay of Salaam Bombay!^{[citation needed]}
• 1991: Golden Osella (Best Original Screenplay) Venice Film Festival: Mississippi Masala^{[citation needed]}
• 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 )[24]
• 2020: Filmfare nomination for Best Film Web Original, for Yeh Ballet

Memberships

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (2017–present)[25]
• Writers Guild of America (1989–present)

References

External links

Biography:

• Official Website
• Trailer of upcoming documentary on Taraporevala
• SAWNET biography
• Sooni Taraporevala at IMDb
• http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/10/30/sooni-taraporevala-parsis-zizou/ at The Harvard Crimson
• https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/719511 at THE MET
• https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/VcDlKlKfiCz3SFxHE6TBrM/Sooni-Taraporevala-To-Bombay-with-love.html at Mint
• http://www.gallerychemould.com/exhibitions/sooni-taraporevala-bombay-mumbai-black-white-photographs/ Archived 6 April 2018 at the Wayback Machine
• https://thewire.in/culture/bombay-mumbai-seen-sooni-taraporewalas-sharp-eye at THE WIRE

Misc.:

• NPR radio feature at Npr
• Iranian.com feature
• St Louis Post-Dispatch- NYTimes wire story

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