Hindi
Whistling Woods in co-production pact with University of Calgary
MUMBAI: In another move to widen its wings internationally, Whistling Woods International (WWI) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Calgary and SAIT for a co-production partnership.
This will be an exchange program between select students from the joint University of Calgary (UC) and South Albertan Institute of Technology (SAIT) Bachelor of Film Studies Program and Whistling Woods International (WWI) film school, Mumbai.
This agreement is poised to mark an important milestone in education and training in Digital technology and knowledge exchange related to different facets of film production. This initiative is spread over six months, including pre-production, production and post-production process shared equally between WWI and UC. 10 students (5 from Mumbai, 5 from Calgary) and 4 instructors (2 from Mumbai, 2 from Calgary) will participate in this venture.
Speaking on the occasion, Whistling Woods International, founder and chairman Subhash Ghai said, “It is a great privilege for Whistling Woods to be associated with universities of this stature internationally. I am truly grateful that UC and SAIT have extended their support to us for this new exchange programme and look forward to a long-standing, strong working relationship together.”
The WWI team will travel to Canada for part of the principal shoot and the rest will be executed in India with the Canadian counterparts in Mumbai. The project will create greater cross-cultural and mutual understanding of each other‘s work processes, values, approaches and ways of working. Additionally, the project will encourage possibilities of curricula and faculty exchange in the future.
Students and faculty involved in the project will be the first to participate in this cross-cultural exchange and have the opportunity to gain international work experience. This cooperative initiative will evaluate the feasibility of future collaborative ventures related to the training of professionals in the film industry.
These select students along with selected instructors from both campuses will work together to produce a short 20-minute film that shall be premiered at the 2013 Banff World Media Festival, one of the biggest International gatherings of short films in the world.
Recently, WWI had announced that it would, in collaboration with Trend Media City Ltd (TMC), set up a film and media training institute in Nigeria that would mark Africa‘s first world-class film institute to be called Whistling Woods International Nigeria (WWIN).
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.
