Hindi
DIFF rolls out two new awards for Dubai Film Connection
MUMBAI: The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) has introduced two new awards for its Dubai Film Connection co-production market that aims to provide a platform for collaboration between Arab and international film industry professionals.
While the $10,000 Bahrain Film Production Company DIFF Development Award will assist filmmakers in developing their projects, the $25,000 Desert Door DIFF Works in Progress Award will assist films already in production to reach completion.
The Bahrain Film Production company was set up in 2006 to generate support and infrastructure for regional filmmakers. Desert Door productions is an independent film production company based in Dubai that develops, produces and invests in socially relevant television, film and commercial projects throughout the Middle East, United States and Europe.
DIFF managing director Shivani Pandya said, “Our success rate from the first year of the Dubai Film Connection – half of our projects are in various stages of production, and one is competing in the Muhr Awards this year – is phenomenal, and a sign that the programme is filling an important niche in this region.”
According to DIFF, two out of the three projects that participated in Dubai Film Connection 2007 have already been shortlisted for the first annual Desert Door DIFF Work in Progress Award. These projects include Amreeka, directed by Cherien Dabis, and Everyday is a Holiday, directed by Dima el Horr.
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.
