Sooni Taraporevala

Sooni Taraporevala is the director, co-producer and co-writer of the 2024 Amazon Prime series Waack GIrls. She also wrote and directed the 2020 Netflix movie Yeh Ballet. Her directorial debut, Little Zizou (2008), won 11 international awards. Her first screenplay, Salaam Bombay! (1988) began her long association with director-producer Mira Nair; the film was nominated for an Academy Award, won more than twenty-five awards worldwide, and earned Taraporevala the Lillian Gish Award from Women in Film, Los Angeles. Sooni wrote the screenplay for several other movies, including Mississippi Masala and The Namesake (based on Jhumpa Lahiri's book). Sooni's photographs have been in group shows at London's Tate Modern and New York's Met Museum, and they're in the collections of museums worldwide, including the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi and New York's Met Museum. In 2014, the President of India awarded Sooni the Padma Shri, one of the highest civilian honors.