Hindi
JIFF 2012 to have awards for best premiere
NEW DELHI: The Jaipur International Film Festival is introducing a special award for the best film that will be have its Indian or world premiere at the Festival to be held in January.
The Red Rose will be conferred on a new film which the jury finds is unique in its content and treatment. This feature is being added as an ‘open category‘ in JIFF 2012.
Entries from all over the world will be eligible for this category. The festival has invited any member of the crew – the filmmakers, musicians and composers – to be present for the launch of their film, music release etc.
Any filmmaker/musician can also deliver the live performance of the concerned project, at the opening or closing ceremonies.
This practice is popular and applicable among many prestigious film festivals like Berlin, Toronto and Cannes, Festival Director Hanu Roj told indiantelevision.com.
In the feature film category, Golden Camel, Red Rose, Green Rose, Yellow Rose and Best Director for first film will be presented, in addition to awards in the category of Short Film, Documentary Film, Director, Cinematography, Sound, Script, Editing, best film From Rajasthan, Critics‘ Award, Animation Film, and Upcoming Star.
The Festival had last year attracted as many as 144 films including 71 from overseas at the 3rd Jaipur International Film Festival in January 2011.
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.
