Hindi
‘Liar’s Dice’ chosen as India’s entry for Oscars
MUMBAI: National Award winning Hindi film Liar’s Dice, starring Geetanjali Thapa and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, has been chosen as India’s entry for the ‘Best foreign film’ category at the 87th Academy Awards.
Directed by the film debutant Geetu Mohandas the film has been chosen by a 12-member jury appointed by the Film Federation of India (FFI). The film has been shortlisted out of 30 contenders, the largest number FFI has ever considered including Priyanka Chopra’s Mary Kom, Kangna Ranaut starrer Queen, Hansal Mehta’s acclaimed Shahid and Riteish Deshmukh-produced Marathi film Yellow, Rani Mukherji’s comeback Mardaani among others.
The movie tells the story of a young tribal mother who, along with her three-year-old daughter, embarks on a journey in search of her missing husband. On the way, she meets an army deserter, who decides to accompany them to their destination.
Early this year, Liar’s Dice won the special jury award at the Sofia International Film Festival in Bulgaria. In addition to traveling at various festivals, it went on to win the National Awards honor for best actress (Geetanjali Thapa) and cinematography (Rajeev Ravi).
The last Indian film that made it to the final five nominees at the Oscars was Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan. Mother India and Salaam Bombay are the only other two Indian films to have made it to the top five.
The 87th Academy awards will take place on 22 February.
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.
