Sooni Taraporevala

Sooni Taraporevala
Sooni Taraporevala in 2010
Born	1957 (age 59–60) Mumbai
Nationality	India
Occupation	screenwriter, film director, photographer
Years active	1988–present

Sooni Taraporevala (born 1957) is an Indian screenwriter and photographer who is best known as the screenwriter of Mississippi Masala, The Namesake and Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay (1988), all directed by Mira Nair.

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.".

She was awarded the Padma Shri by Government of India in 2014.

Sooni completed her schooling from The Cathedral & John Connon School as well as Queen Mary . She took a filmmaking course under Alfred Guzzetti, and 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.

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 2006.