Hindi
DAR MentorCap gets Sebi approval for Rs 1 bn film fund
MUMBAI: The DAR MentorCap jointly promoted by DAR Media Private Limited, a leading Mumbai-based film production and distribution company, and MentorCap Management Private Limited, an investment advisory firm, has received Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) approval for its film fund under the new AIF guidelines.
With an initial corpus of Rs 1 billion, the DAR MentorCap Film Fund has tenure of five years with a liquidation option for investors after three years. Apart from high-levels of corporate governance, transparency and credibility the fund is also seeking significant alpha generation targeted IRR in excess of 20 per cent.
The Film Fund is being marketed as an exclusive product amongst an identified set of High Net worth Individuals (HNIs) and Institutional Investors.
DAR MentorCap Founder & Partner Shailesh Haribhakti said, “The steady upswing in the Hindi film industry has now prepared it for systems, processes and good governance. The simultaneous establishment of the AIF regulations have created the space for this unique film fund that will execute over 20 projects in the next 2-3 years.
“The most distinguishing aspect of the fund is that it already has a wide selection of projects to invest in through our partner DAR Media‘s extensive network and experience. From that perspective investors in the fund will see their money working from the word go. A new Asset Management Company (AMC) – Creative Collaboration Advisors has already been set up to evaluate and manage the fund‘s investments,” added Haribhakti.
The funds General Partner DAR Media has already identified, seeded and created a consideration set of over 20 projects for the fund, leveraging key industry partnerships with the likes of Anurag Kashyap, Shimit Amin, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Nikhil Advani, Danis Tanovic and Pan Nalin, amongst others.
DAR MentorCap, and Chairman of DAR Media Founder & Partner Arun Rangachari said, “The DAR MentorCap Film Fund will follow a calibrated, controlled, transparent and focused investment strategy of acquiring quality projects, following innovative risk mitigation strategies and getting optimal returns. We aim at hedging risk by investing, at ground level, in a bouquet of projects that are at various points of the film‘s production and release cycle. To this effect DAR Media will offer its entire production slate, which currently stands at over 20 projects, to the fund for its consideration. These projects are being offered to the fund at zero premium and is a reflection of our endeavour to facilitate institutional and HNI investment flows into the industry.
“This apart the Fund will further be encouraged to work with the entire value chain of the Indian film industry and take up positions in projects that are in sync with the fund‘s overall investment strategy,” added Rangachari.
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.
