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Sooni Taraporevala | |
|---|---|
 Sooni Taraporevala in 2010 | |
| Born | 1957 (age 67–68) |
| Occupation(s) | screenwriter, film director, photographer |
| Years active | 1988–present |
Sooni Taraporevala (born 1957) is an Indian screenwriter, photographer, and filmmaker. She is known for the screenplays ofMississippi Masala,The Namesake (an adaptation ofJhumpa Lahiri's novel of the same name), and the Oscar-nominatedSalaam Bombay!, all directed byMira Nair.[1] She also adaptedRohinton Mistry's novelSuch A Long Journey (1998). She wrote the filmsDr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, her directorial debutLittle Zizou (2008), andYeh Ballet (2020), aNetflix original film that she also directed.[2][3]
Taraporevala wrote the screenplay for and directed her first feature film,Little Zizou (2008), an ensemble piece set inMumbai.[4][5] This film explores issues facing theParsi community to which she belongs. It won the Silver Lotus Award (2009) at the National Film Awards for Best Film on Family Values.[6]
Taraporevala was awarded thePadma Shri byGovernment of India in 2014.[7] She is a member of theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of theNational Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Delhi and theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Taraporevala was born to aParsi family in Mumbai in 1957. Her granduncle had been a studio photographer in Bombay, and her father Rumi had been an amateur photographer.[8] She completed her schooling fromQueen Mary School, Mumbai. Taraporevala got her firstInstamatic camera at age 16.[8]
She received a full scholarship to attendHarvard University as an undergraduate. (With a loan from a roommate, she bought aNikkormat camera, but it was stolen when she returned to Bombay in the 1980s.)[8] At Harvard she majored in English and American literature. She also took many film courses, including filmmaking taught byAlfred Guzzetti.[9] Taraporevala metMira Nair as an undergraduate, leading to their longtime creative collaboration after Nair started directing.
Taraporevala joined the Cinema Studies Department atNew 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.[10][11][12] She shot her early work from this period on aLeica and her father'sNikon.[8]
She returned to the US in 1988, settling in Los Angeles to work as a screenwriter. She wrote commissioned screenplays for a wide variety of studios, including Universal, HBO and Disney.
She moved back to India for good in 1992, and continued to work on screenplays, directing films, and taking photographs.
She married Firdaus Batlivala. They have two children together, son Jahan and daughter Iyanah.[8]
Her children played the roles of Xerxes and Liana, respectively, in her first film,Little Zizou (2008), which she wrote and directed.[13]
Taraporevala wrote the screenplays forSalaam Bombay! andMississippi Masala, both directed byMira Nair. Other projects with Nair include the screenplay forMy Own Country, based on the book byAbraham Verghese, as well asThe Namesake (2006), a cinematic adaptation ofPulitzer–winning writerJhumpa Lahiri's novel,The Namesake.[7]
Her other produced credits include the filmSuch a Long Journey based on the novelSuch a Long Journey byRohinton Mistry and directed by Sturla Gunnarson, and the screenplay for the filmDr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, directed byJabbar Patel for the Government of India and theNational Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC).[citation needed]
In 2016 she directed a 14-minute documentary virtual reality filmYeh Ballet[14] forAnand Gandhi'sMemesys Culture Lab.
In 2020 she wrote and directed a feature film based on her documentary. The Netflix Original filmYeh Ballet, produced by Siddharth Roy Kapur and Roy Kapur Films, can be seen on Netflix worldwide.
In 1982, during a break from college, she met photographerRaghubir 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.[9]
...she had the eye, the patience, the empathy of a seasoned portraitist; but she also had something even harder to find — a lifelong, unillusioned, affectionate closeness to an entire community whose numbers were dwindling with every passing year (Pico Iyer, inHome in the City, 2017).[8]
In 2000, she self-publishedParsis, the Zoroastrians of India: a photographic journey, 1980-2000. The community had isolated itself since earlier persecution in Persia, and this is the first and only visual documentation of the Parsis.[15] An updated edition was published in 2004.[16]
Her photographs have been exhibited in India, the US, France and Britain, including London'sTate Modern gallery.[citation needed]
She has had solo shows at theCarpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University,Chemould Prescott Road in Mumbai, and theNational Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in Delhi. Her work is in the permanent collections of the NGMA Delhi and theMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
In 2017/2018, theWhitworth inManchester exhibited her photographic showHome in the City, Bombay 1977 – Mumbai 2017. It was selected byThe Guardian as one of the UK's top 5 shows.[citation needed]
A larger version ofHome in the City (with 102 photographs) was exhibited at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, from 14 through 31 October 2017.[17] An accompanying book,Home in the city: Bombay 1977 – Mumbai 2017, was released with essays by authorsPico Iyer andSalman Rushdie.[18]The exhibit traveled to theSunaparanta, Goa Centre for the Arts inAltinho, Goa, opening there on 11 November 2017.[citation needed]
| Year | Film | Director | Writer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Salaam Bombay![19] | No | Yes | |
| 1991 | Mississippi Masala[20] | No | Yes | |
| 1998 | Such a Long Journey[21] | No | Yes | |
| My Own Country | No | Yes | Television film | |
| 2000 | Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar[22] | No | Yes | |
| 2006 | The Namesake[23] | No | Yes | |
| 2009 | Little Zizou | Yes | Yes | |
| 2020 | Yeh Ballet[24] | Yes | Yes |
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