Hindi
Tintin records Rs 73.5 million in opening weekend
MUMBAI: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn has become the highest opening animated film in India, according to Sony Pictures India.
The film garnered approximately Rs 73.5 million at the three-day box office with a 90 to 100 per cent occupancy in most centres. The film released with over 350 prints, a record-breaking number for an animated film in both English and Hindi in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D formats.
Said Sony Pictures India Managing Director Kercy Daruwala, “Not only is the animated genre gaining ground amongst all age groups in India, but Tintin is unique in the sense that the franchise is enjoyed and appreciated by a very wide audience right from kids to adults who grew up on Tintin.
There is an amazing passion for both the franchise and the film in India with even celebrities like Aamir Khan giving the film an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Naturally, this is reflected in the wide release the film is getting in the country. The film’s collections have increased day upon day and we expect to see the film sustain strongly based on excellent word of mouth.”
The film also garnered 3.5 to 4 ratings amongst all major reviewers.
The film is also the first animated film to have made new inroads into smaller centres, having opened simultaneously across India in smaller cities such as Alwar, Gwalior, Akola, Amravati, Madurai, Salem and Trichur.
The Adventures of Tintin has already garnered over $159m at the box office in Europe alone and has broken several records in countries like France and Belgium.
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.
