Hindi
Mumbai film fest comes to a close
MUMBAI: After a week of celebrating movies, the final day of the 15th Mumbai Film Festival presented by Reliance Entertainment and organised by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI) unfolded.
As the curtains came down, some of the best films screened at the festival were awarded. The International Competition Jury of the 15th Mumbai Film Festival, headed by Bruce Beresford awarded the Golden Gateway of India for the Best Film in the International Competition section to La Juala De Oro directed by Diego Quemada-Diez and produced by Inna Payan, Luis Salinas and Edher Campos.
The Jury Grand Prize was given with The Silver Gateway of India trophy to the Indian film, Fandry directed by Nagraj Manjule and produced by Vivek Kajaria and Nilesh Navlakha. Anthony Chen was awarded to Best Director for the film Ilo Ilo and Yann Yann Yeo won the Best Actress award for her role in the same movie. The Silver Gateway of India Trophy for Best Actor was awarded to Vincent Macaigne for his role in Tonnerre.
The final few films screened at the festival included Red Wedding directed by Guillaume Suon and Lida Chan, Short Term 12 by Destin Cretton, Saving General Yang directed by Ronny Yu, Hiroshi Toda’s Seventh Cat, Five Years by Stefan Schaller, Costa Gavras’s Amen and the much acclaimed Z, A Few Days More by Om Prakash Srivastava among others.
Legendary director Bruce Beresford conducted the last master class of the festival on Preparation by the Director. “I thought I would talk about the necessity of story boarding. These days, with tight budgets and short schedules, if you don’t plan them, you’ll make all sorts of horrible mistakes,” he said.
The master class later turned into a panel discussion moderated by Variety Asia’s bureau chief, Patrick Rafter. The panelists included Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences member and Digital Motion Picture Archive project lead Milton Shefter and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Science and Technology Council director Andy Maltz.
Andrew Commis for his cinematography in the movie The Rocket was conferred with the final award in the International Competition category.
The HT Cafe Mumbai Young Critics Jury Award for the Best Film presented by Kavita Awasthi was given to the Voice of the Voiceless directed by Maximon Monihan. The HT Best Young Mumbai Critic Award presented by Daniel Kotenschulte was given to Yavar Ahmed of SCM Sophia College.
Gloria directed by Sebastian Lelio was presented with Best Film award by the Harmony Celebrate Age Jury, headed by Hansal Mehta. Along with the Silver Gateway of India trophy, director Sebastian Lelio was awarded a cash prize too. Additionally, a cash prize was also awarded to director Matevz Luzar as his film Srecen Za Umret won the Silver Gateway of India trophy for Second Best Film.
Oh, How I Long directed by Riyad Deis and Arefi, Der Hirte (Arefi, The Shepherd) directed by Daniel Asad Faezi elicited Special Mentions from the Jury.
The Indian feature fiction films screened in the India Gold 2013 category brought to the fore many talented directors. However, Jury member Jill Bilcock in consultation with the members of the Jury announced Deepti Kakkar and Farhad Mustafa’s Katiyabaaz (Powerless) as the Best Film in the category. Qissa: The Tale of a Lonely Ghost directed by Anup Singh won Second Best Film while Manju Borah’s Ko:yad (A Silent Way) received the Special Jury Award.
Directors below the age of 25 pit their skill in a short film competition “Dimensions Mumbai”. The brainchild of Jaya Bachchan, the competition is a fantastic launch pad for young and aspiring filmmakers. Headed by Shoojit Sircar, the Jury awarded director Keyur Kajavadra S’ In This City the silver gateway of India trophy for Best Film. Mumbaicha Vada Pav directed by Akshay Dhanavale won Second Best Film. Director Sameer Nerkar’s The Handicapped Colony and Abhiraj Rajadyaksha’s Share were given Special Mentions by the Jury.
Festival Director Srinivasan Narayanan delivered the vote of thanks concluding this year’s festival, which was followed by the closing film of the festival. The Fifth Estate directed by Bill Condon was screened as the finale film of the festival.
With over 200 films from 65 countries around the world screened and master classes that inspired, the 15th Mumbai Film Festival presented by Reliance Entertainment and organised by MAMI was truly a grand success.
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.
