Hindi
CBFS prodding has makers change film name
MUMBAI: For the first time, a film‘s title had to be changed because the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFS) had some reservations.
Though it released on 9 March, the makers of the Bengali film Macho Mustafa had to go through prodding times at the hands of the CBFS. The reason: the censoring authority didn‘t like the original title Macho Mastana.
“As the Censor Board expressed reservations about the title, we sought feedback from community leaders and accordingly the name was changed less than a month before the film‘s release,” director Reshmi Mitra has reportedly said.
“We were told that the term ‘Macho‘ cannot be prefixed to God (Allah) and this may hurt religious sentiments,” she explained.
The budget for the film, of which Rs 70 million had already been spent, went up by at least Rs 3 million more on account of frame-by-frame correction in the computer generated imagery (CGI), which was essential.
The budget has further swelled because the correction of shots were done at a Chennai studio, Mitra said. The film‘s old name and logos were displayed in some shots, which had to be changed and the whole title track, with the emblazoned old name, had to be re-recorded after building a new set, she pointed out.
However, things would be better if they were made aware of the title‘s sensitivity beforehand as posters, publicity materials and hundreds of audio CDs bearing the old name had already been printed, she observed.
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.
