Hindi
Viacom 18’s Cine Shorts returns with season 2
MUMBAI: With an aim to provide a platform to budding filmmakers with an opportunity to showcase their talent through a five-minute short film, Viacom 18 has launched the second season of Cine Shorts on 7 September.
Viacom 18 has also brought on board Inox as a partner on the Cine Shorts initiative.
The jury comprising director-producer David Dhawan, director Sriram Raghavan, Viacom18 Motion Pictures COO Ajit Andhare and cinematographer Ayananka Bose amongst others, will be evaluating the entries.
Andhare said, “This is an initiative that we at Viacom 18 Motion Picture (VMP) are very proud of. Our studio has been known to work with fresh talent and this endeavour allows us to add to the talent pool of the Indian film industry.”
Raghavan added, “We have a platform for singers on television and we have several dance reality shows – CineShorts is a platform for film makers. This is a stage for youngsters to showcase their talent, which may or may not have seen the light of day otherwise and I am glad to be a part of such an initiative.”
Expressing his views on the same, Dhawan said, “Comedy, especially romantic comedy is a tough genre to work on and I am looking forward to some exceptional short films that will not only strike a chord but also leave you in splits.”
Inox Leisure CEO Alok Tandon opined, “We are happy to be associated with Cine Shorts for the second year in a row. In a country, which is passionately excited about movies, this festival is an ideal platform for budding filmmakers to display their talent and be recognised. It also gives these filmmakers a stage to unleash their potential and creativity and showcase their filmmaking flair to the world.”
While the first season had the theme of ‘Fighting the Odds,’ the second season will now challenge participants to make a short film on the concept of ‘Falling in Love’ but with a twist.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
