Hindi
Yash Raj Films signs three film deal with Dibakar Banerjee
MUMBAI: In a tie that promises to be its long time strategy, Yash Raj Films has announced a three film co-production deal with Dibakar Banerjee Productions.
Banerjee said, “This is new, promising and exciting. Adi and I have different and individualistic creative visions while sharing a tremendous synergy in our ambition to take Indian cinema to new milestones at home and abroad. We decided to embark on this venture almost immediately after our very first meeting.”
“I respect quality, consistency and true professionalism. YRF stands for that. Given my style of film making and YRF‘s tremendous presence, reach and experience, this association will merge our respective expertise to create really trendsetting yet entertaining content for a really wide audience. I see tremendous potential in Adi‘s concerted plans for getting into co-production agreements with diverse, like-minded filmmakers,” he adds.
While specifics of the slate are still being decided, the arrangement entails that two of the films will be directed by Dibakar and the third by his long-time associate and the writer of the path-breaking Love Sex Aur Dhokha, Kanu Behl.
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.
