Hindi
Karnataka government to set up film academy
BANGALORE: The Karnataka Government is to set up a Chalchitra Academy shortly to help the Kannada film industry, said Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa while inaugurating the Third Bengalooru International Film Festival.
The goverment will also seek to increase the budgetary grant for promotion of good cinema in the next financial year, Yeddyurappa added.
The Karnataka government will also considering doubling the number of children‘s films to which it gives a grant every year. At present, only two children‘s films are given a grant of Rs 2.5 million each every year.
Meanwhile, atotal of more than 150 films from over thirty countries are being screened in various sections of theBengalooru International Film Festival.
The Festival has been organised by the Suchitra Cinema and Cultural Academy in collaboration with the Karnataka government.
The Kannada section of the Festival, a highlight of which is a two-hour long DVD film on the evolution of Kannada film music over the year, was inaugurated by the noted singer and music director, C Aswath.
The Indian Panorama Section was inaugurated by Prakash Rai while KVR Tagore, Additional Director General of Police, inaugurated the Documentary and Short Films section.
The four-day animation workshop, organised by ABAI and ANTS, was inaugurated by actor-director Ramesh Arvind.
As part of the Festival, six children‘s films are being screened. The screenings have been organised for school children from designated schools.
A Photo Exhibition on 75 years of Kannada Cinema compiled by the Department of Information of the state Government was inaugurated by the celebrated VK Murthy.
To mark the platinum jubilee of Kannada cinema, around 40 landmark films, both in 35mm and digital format, are being screened at the festival.
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.
