Hindi
Over 25 films awarded at Mumbai Women’s International Film Festival
NEW DELHI: Veteran actor Shabaza Azmi and senior actor-director Nandita Das along with renowned choreographer Saroj Khan were awarded Awards of Excellence at the Mumbai Women’s International Film Festival (MWIFF) in the western metropolis.
The seven-day Festival organised by Oculus Creations had screened 210 films from across 70 nations and had given women filmmakers an international platform to screen their talents.
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While ‘Aabida’ by Maaria Sayeed of India won the best short film award, the largest number of awards went to ‘Bawra Mann’ for editing by Meghna Ashchitr and screenplay by Mitu Kumar and Abhilasha Nagi. The runner-up in the short film category was Israel’s ‘Rpomancy’ by Tal Getritman, Shea E Butler from US won the director’s award for ‘The Trial of Ben Barry’, while the cinematography award went to the British Chris Moon for ‘The Other Woman’. Shazia Shrivatava and Sharifa Roy got the best story award for ‘Do Pahar’.
‘Connected’ by America’s Tiffany Shiain got the best documentary award, and the runner-up award went to India’s ‘Woman Prayed and preyed upon’ by Kankana Chakraborty.
‘Silence’ by Avani Saxena and ‘Delivering Hope’ by Niraj Upadhyaya won the best and runner-up awards respectively in the ‘Her’ films category.
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Spain’s ‘A soft scent of Cinnamon’ by Giovanna Ribes won the Best Feature film award.
The Audience Choice Awards went to three documentaries – ‘Gawah’ by Gauri Chadha, ‘Scattered Windows, Connected Doors’ by Ms Roohi Dixit and ms Ziba Bhagwagar, and America’s ‘Beyond Silence’ by Vidyut Latay – and two short films: ‘Melody’ by Hana Makki of Dubai, and ;Happy Birthday’ by Sheetal Shetty.
The jury choice award went to the documentary ‘Gun and a God’ by Sonia Nepram of India and the short ‘725’ by America’s Irawati Athalye. Five documentaries came in for special mention: ‘In Our own way’ by Italy’s Wilma Massucco, India’s ‘Shivkalin Mardani Khel’ by Sailee Chandrakant Sane, ‘A country for my daughter’ by South Africa’s ‘Lucilla Blankenberg, India’s ‘My Kashmir’ by Madhuri Mohindar and Vaishali Sinha, and Italy’s ‘Me and Marti’ by Martina Vander Veer.
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Khan said: ‘The Bollywood fraternity respects the women filmmaker, long live women power’.
Das said, ‘The percentage of women filmmakers in the industry is very less. I am very happy that women directors, women cinematographers, women editors and all the women technicians who work behind the camera are being felicitated and their work is being showcased at different places in Mumbai from the past one week and I’m also glad that my film ‘Firaaq’ was a part of it.’
Deepa Bhatia, the editor of films ‘Kai Po Che’, ‘Student of The Year’ and ‘My Name Is Khan’ after her felicitation with the Award of Excellence said that this concept will help to uplift women filmmakers.
Singer Shibani Kashyap, who was also awarded, rendered her famous song ‘Sajna Aa Bhi Jaa’.
Others felicitated included filmmakers Alankrita Shrivastava and Samruddhi Porey.
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.
