Hindi
For a first PVR to release documentaries under Director’s Rare banner
MUMBAI: PVR cinemas is slated to release three documentaries under the banner of Director‘s Rare. The documentaries are – Fire In Babylon on 21 September, Bom / One Day Ahead Of Democracy to on 9 November and Celluloid Man sometime in December.
All along PVR Cinemas has been releasing independent feature films under Director‘s Rare brand but this is the first time that documentary features are being released under the banner.
Observes, Head of PVR Director‘s Rare Shiladitya Bora, “We at PVR Cinemas believe that there is a space for all kinds of cinema. We have already pushed the envelope by giving mainstream exhibition to indie content. Now we want to take a step forward and treat our audiences with some exceptional documentaries which deserve to be seen.
In the coming weeks we will be releasing some award winning Indian as well as international documentaries under PVR Director‘s Rare banner,” he adds.
Fire In Babylon, by Steven Riley charts the ascendancy of the West Indies cricket team throughout the late ‘70s and ‘80s. The film strikes a defiant blow at the forces of the apartheid world, through a game previously reserved for the privileged elite. The film was nominated for a British Independent Film Award for Best Documentary and was a joint-winner of the UNESCO Award at the Jamaica Reggae Film Festival 2011.
Set in a remote village of Malana in the Himalayas Bom / One Day Ahead Of Democracy by Amlan Datta depicts the invasion of modern democracy in this land of harmony, peace and unity, resulting in the destruction of the latter.
Celluloid Man: A Film On P.K. Nair by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur honours the contribution of P K Nair to disseminate film culture in India. Nair was the founder-director of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Pune. His efforts have resulted in a coveted collection of 12,000 films at the NFAI from the start up of 124 films.
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.
