Hindi
MAMI ties up with Talenthouse for crowd-sourcing initiatives
Mumbai: As the 14th edition of the Mumbai Film Festival draws closer, Reliance Entertainment initiative – Talenthouse India and Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) have designed innovative crowd-sourcing initiatives aimed at young talented filmmakers.
Talenthouse CEO Mr. Arun Mehra said, “Talenthouse constantly endeavours to provide life-changing opportunities for artists globally by giving them various platforms to showcase their creativity and get recognition. We are proud to be associated with the 14th Mumbai Film Festival, one of India‘s biggest film festivals and are looking forward to receiving some great entries.”
With the film festival scheduled to be held from 18 to 25 October, entries for the 14th Mumbai Film Festival‘s (MFF) Dimensions Mumbai competition section are open to filmmakers below the age of 25 to make short films that capture the subject of ‘Essence of Mumbai‘.
Speaking on this initiative Mr. Srinivasan Narayanan, Director, Mumbai Film Festival said, “India along with the rest of the world is going digital. Youth are watching television, but not on the television. Since Dimensions Mumbai is talking to this very audience, it is only obvious that we evolve to smarter, more convenient technology to help them send their entries across to us.”
All winning entries will be decided by MAMI Trustees keeping in mind the essence of the festival. The winning films will bag the Silver Gateway trophies and cash prize of Rs 1,00,000 and Rs 50,000 respectively.
The last date to submit entries is 31 August and the winner will be announced during the star- studded awards function on 25 October.
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.
