Hindi
Milkha Singh biopic to be filmed in Melbourne
MUMBAI: Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (Run Milkha Run), the latest film by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, will shoot key scenes in Melbourne, according to the Premier of Victoria and minister for the Arts Ted Baillieu.
The film will tell the story of the legendary Indian runner Milkha Singh, known as the ‘Flying Sikh‘, who won 77 of the international races out of the 80 that he entered in. Singh first represented India at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics that introduced him to the world stage and launched his international running career.
“India is one of the busiest film production destinations in the world, and its burgeoning film industry offers vast opportunities for Victorian co-production projects, building on our strengths in the creative arts,” Baillieu observed. “Victoria is gaining recognition as a leading film production destination with world-class studio facilities at our disposal, such as the Docklands Film and Television Studios.”
Baillieu said that the length of the shoot in Melbourne was anticipated to be between two and three weeks, which will generate more than $1 million in local economic activity.
Produced by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Productions (ROMP) and Viacom18 India, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag will be directed by Mehra. It features Farhaan Akhtar and Sonam Kapoor. Tourism Victoria will leverage the release of the movie through a marketing campaign in India featuring the key locations from the film.
Other Indian films shot in Melbourne were Salaam Namaste and Chak de! India.
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.
