Sooni Taraprevala, the award-winning screenwriter of The Namesake, Salaam Bombay and Such A Long Journey, is at work in Mumbai on her directorial debut, Little Zizou.

The film, which started shooting late last month, stars Boman Irani and Mahabanoo Kotwal. It is being executive produced by Taraprevala's long-term collaborator, Mira Nair.

The film will be shot in English and is being produced by Studio 18 and Jigri Dost, the production company set up by Taraprevala and her friend and long-term collaborator Dinaz Stafford.

'While producing mainstream Indian feature films is a core activity of Studio 18, we will additionally look at supporting a select number of credible international projects every year. Little Zizou is our first and we are happy to be working with Mira Nair and Sooni Taraporevala on this,' Sandeep Bhargava, Studio 18's CEO, told ScreenDaily.com.

Little Zizou is a comedy set in the eccentric and dwindling Parsi community, focusing on two families and the central conflict between its patriarchs.

'I am very proud to be associated with this,' Nair commented. 'Sooni has an amazing sense of humour and she is doing this with a very sure sense of what she wants. She has extraordinary actors.' Nair describes her own role as that 'of a mother hen of sorts.'

Taraprevala and Mira Nair - who is to shoot part of her next film Shantaram in Mumbai - are also planning a screen version of Hari Kunzru's The Impressionist.

Taraprevala has also recently written a screen adaptation of Mark Shand's Travels On My Elephant, about Shand's 800-mile journey across southern and central India on a 30-year-old elephant called Tara.