Hindi
Marc Webb ecstatic with response to The Amazing Spiderman in India
NEW DELHI: Renowned director Marc Webb, whose latest film The Amazing Spiderman is continuing to create newer records in India, has said Spiderman ‘is a character that many Indians have grown up with and hold dear to their hearts.‘
In a letter thanking Indian audiences for giving it the largest opening for any Hollywood film in India, Webb said, “We are honoured to be part of the continuing legacy of Spiderman in India.”
“We hope that you will continue to offer us the same support in the weeks to come as The Amazing Spiderman continues its record-breaking run at the Indian box office,” he concluded.
‘The Amazing Spiderman‘, one of the few films from Hollywood that was released in India on 29 June prior to its international release on 4 July, opened with over 1000 prints which is the largest ever release for a Hollywood film in the country.
The film was released in 3D, 2D and IMAX formats, and in four languages – English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.
One of the world‘s most popular comic characters, The Amazing Spiderman tells an untold story of the Peter Parker tale. The new film stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, and India‘s Irrfan Khan with Martin Sheen and Sally Field.
The film is directed by Marc Webb from a screenplay written by James Vanderbilt, based on the Marvel Comic Book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Laura Ziskin, Avi Arad, and Matt Tolmach are producing the film in association with Marvel Entertainment for Columbia Pictures.
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.
