Hindi
‘Killa’, ‘Bidesia in Bambai’ nominated for Asia Pacific Screen Awards from India
NEW DELHI: Avinash Arun’s Killa and Surabhi Sharma’s Bidesia in Bambai are the only two films from India that have been nominated for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards 2014 (APSA) to be held in Brisbane.
APSA to be held on 11 December will coincide with the first Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival (BAPFF).
Killa, nominated in Best Youth Feature Film category, had its world premiere at Berlin International Film Festival this year. It was also awarded at the Mumbai Film Festival recently.
The other nominations in Best Youth Feature Film category include 52 Tuesdays (Australia), Correction Class (Russian Federation), Sivas (Turkey, Germany) and Theeb (Jordan, Qatar, UAE, UK).
Bidesia in Bambai, revolving around migrants in Mumbai, has been nominated in Best Documentary Feature Film category. The other nominations in this category include 1001 Apples (Iraq), Sanda (Republic of Korea), Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait (Syria, France); and Wukan: the Flame of Democracy (Singapore).
However, India failed to get any nomination in the Best Film category. The nominations for the same include Winter Sleep (Turkey, France, Germany), Leviathan (Russia), I’m Not Angry (Iran), The Owners (Kazakhstan), and Memories on Stone (Iraqi Kurdistan, Germany).
The event, which is described as a ‘reimagining’ of the Brisbane International Film Festival is an extension of the programme of screenings of APSA-nominated films, started in 2013. Kiki Fung, the former head programmer of BIFF, will be one of the curators of the new festival.
The Festival will be held from 29 November to 14 December. Screen Queensland will provide A$700,000 (US $658,000) per year for the next three years to help stage the 16-day event.
In its first year, it will host approximately sixty feature films and documentaries. The festival will also include a special showcase of APSA-winning films.
In addition to the flagship screenings of films from the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, BAPFF will present a specially-curated showcase of the creative and cultural breadth of the works of filmmakers from the vast Asia Pacific region.
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.
