Hindi
20 films on Buddhism to be screened at 5-day fest
NEW DELHI: Over 20 feature and short films on Buddhist philosophy and thought from seven countries will be screened during ‘Inner Path‘, a five-day festival of understanding Buddhist thought and philosophy.
Union Minister for Culture Kumari Selja will inaugurate the festival on 27 April at Azad Bhavan of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. Council president Karan Singh and director-general Suresh K Goel will also be present at the event.
The inauguration will be followed by ‘Buddhist Sacred Dances and Rituals‘ by a six-member dance troupe from Sri Lanka.
Prior to the inauguration of the main event, the exhibition ‘The Greatest Journey of Ideas: Spread of Buddhism‘ – a select range of photographs of Buddhist Art in 19 countries by art historian-filmmaker- photographer Benoy K Behl will be inaugurated the same day.
Ten films by Behl are also being screened as part of the Festival.
‘The Inner Path‘ is being organised by the Network for Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) and the Devki Foundation and is the first International Buddhist Festival in the country of his birth.
The festival, which is expected to become an annual feature, has been conceptualised by film critic and NETPAC president Aruna Vasudev, and is being held in partnership with filmmaker Suresh Jindal, chairman of the Devki Foundation.
Vasudev said the features, documentaries, and shorts are coming from Bhutan, Argentina, Korea, Sri Lanka, China, Japan and India.
Renowned directors and film personalities from these countries will be present. They include director Yoon Yong-jin of ‘Hal‘, Srilankan film star Thumindu Dodantenna of ‘Sankara‘, ‘Amongst the Clouds‘ by Edward A. Burger; the documentary ‘Peace is every step‘ by Gaetano Kazuo Maida, and renowned director Hector Kumarasiri whose film ‘Abinikmana‘ will have its world premiere here.
NETPAC had organised a festival of films on Buddhism way back in 1995. Vasudev added that ‘Trishagini‘ by Nabendu Ghosh which was screened in 1995 will also be shown, apart from the ten films by Behl, and Im Kwon-Taek‘s ‘Come Come Come Upwards‘.
Behl said he had been documenting the history of Buddhism and had made 12 films on the subject.
Starting from 27 April and slated to go on till 1 May, the festival at the Azad Bhavan (Indian Council of Cultural Relations) will present Buddhist philosophy and aesthetics through various creative forms – a dance performance, films, an exhibition of photographs, and selected art works, discourses, discussions and debates.
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.
