Hindi
Husain’s film to be screened at IFFI
PANAJI: Through the Eyes of a Painter, the film made for the Films Division by controversial artist M F Hussain, is back in the 39th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) despite protests from Hindu groups.
After firm protests from filmmakers about intrusions on their freedom of speech, the Films Division has got the necessary clearance and the film is being screened as part of the ‘Framing Time’ event of the Films Division at 3 pm tomorrow.
Earlier the Goa government had requested the film to be withdrawn from the festival following complaints from Hindu groups.
Through the Eyes… is an award-winning 18-minute film directed by Husain around four decades earlier. It won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film festival in 1967. The film is a depiction of Rajasthan through Husain‘s eyes.
Meanwhile, the National Film Development Corporation Film Bazaar at Marriott Resort in Goa opened today and will continue till 29 November.
The Film Bazaar aims at creating opportunities for networking and business for producers, filmmakers and distributors from across the world.
This year, the Bazaar provides an interactive platform to promote co-production market by facilitating collaboration among potential domestic and international partners in the realms of production and distribution.
Fifteen pre-selected film projects and ten documentary projects, a new feature to be introduced this year will be presented at Bazaar.
The attraction of the Bazaar will be presence of international sales agencies and producers whose work has won critics‘ acclaim and commercial success. There will be a business lounge open throughout the day for the meeting and video screening, in order to enhance collaboration in the field of co-production and distribution.
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.
