Little Zizou to release in March 2009

Precious little is known about Little Zizou, a multilingual independent film written and directed by debutant Sooni Taraporewala, writer of Salaam Bombay! and Mississippi Masala.

A photo still from Little Zizou

But this award-winning movie at a New York film festival is a very promising watch.

The movie stars Boman Irani (Presswala), Sohrab Ardeshir, Imaad Shah (Ataxerxes), Shernaz Patel, Zenobia Shroff (Roxanne Pressvala), Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal, Kunal Vijaykar, Tknow Francorsi, Kurush Deboo, Kamal Sidhu, Dilshad Patel, Jahan Battivala (Xerxes), and Iyanah Battivala (Liana). John Abraham makes a longish special appearance in Little Zizou.

Little Zizou will be released on March 13, 2009.

Little Zizou poster

The movie is about a longstanding rivalry between two eccentric Parsi families, the Khodaijis and the Presswalas. Khodaiji is a rigid advocate of the Parsi faith and its traditions, while Presswala is a liberal newspaper publisher. Needless to say, they hate each others guts.

A little boy, Xerxes, fondly called Zizou, from the Khodaiji family, only wants to see football legend Zinedine Zidane (Zizou) to come to India. He constantly prays to his dead mother to send Zizou to India.

Sooni Taraporewala, director of Little Zizou

He adores Mrs. Presswala, in whom he finds a mother figure, while his elder brother Ataxerxes is hopelessly in love with Presswala’s daughter. All sorts of complications happens when a war between Khodaiji and Presswala flares out, when Presswala writes a scathing article about Khodaiji.

Produced under the Jigri Dost banner, Little Zizou is a Mira Nair and Studio 18 presentation. The music has been composed by Bickram Ghosh.

Little Zizou won the Best Director and Time Warner Best Screenplay awards at the 8th Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival (Miaac), on November 8, 2008.

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