| Sooni Taraporevala | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1957 Mumbai |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | screenwriter, film director, photographer |
| Years active | 1988–present |
Sooni Taraporevala (born 1957) is an internationally acclaimed screenwriter and photographer, currently based in India. She is best known as the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay (1988), all directed by Mira Nair.[1]
She directed her first feature film, based on a screenplay of her own, an ensemble piece set in Bombay, in Spring, 2007, entitled "Little Zizou.".[2][3]
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Taraporevala, who is of Parsi Zoroastrian descent, was born and brought up in Mumbai.
She did her schooling from Queen Mary School in Mumbai, and thereafter did her BA from Harvard University, in 1980. Here she met 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.[4][5][6]
Ms. Taraporevala wrote the screenplays for Salaam Bombay and Mississippi Masala, both directed by Mira Nair. Interestingly, the final drafts of both these films were written in Brooklyn, NY. Other projects with Nair include the screenplay for My Own Country, based on the book by Abraham Verghese as well as the cinematic adaptation of Pulitzer-prize winning writer Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake. The film, The Namesake, was released in 2007.
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. Finally, she wrote the screenplay for the film Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, directed by Dr. Jabbar Patel for the Government of India and the [[National Film Development Corporation of India[]] (NFDC).
Her photographs have been exhibited in India, the US, France and Britain, including London’s Tate Modern gallery.
In Fall 2004, Ms. Taraporevala released a coffee table photography book, a first-ever visual work on India's Parsi Zoroastrian community, entitled Parsis: the Zoroastrians of India - A Photographic Journey (Overlook Press, ISBN 1-58567-593-8). A 24-year labor of love, the book offers rare photos, as well as historical and personal essays on the Zoroastrian religion and Parsi social history.[7][8]
Taraporevala had previously self-published the book in India in 2000, where it sold out in just a few months. The book received glowing advance praise from film director Mira Nair, Harvard literature professor and noted post-colonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha, acclaimed writers Rohinton Mistry and Bapsi Sidhwa and conductor Zubin Mehta.
She is married to Dr. Firdaus Bativala, a dental surgeon and lives in Mumbai, along with their two children, Jahan and Iyanah, both of whom did important roles in her film, Little Zizou (2009).[9][10]
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