Hindi
Shree Ashtavinayak to invest Rs 800 mn, release 4 films in fiscal
MUMBAI: Film production and distribution company Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision (SACV) is investing Rs 800 million and will be releasing four films this fiscal.
The films include Shivam Nair’s suspense thriller Maharathi, Sanjay Gadhvi’s Kidnap, Rohit Shetty’s Golmaal Returns and an untitled film.
“We will pump in Rs 800 million this fiscal. Our target is to produce 4-5 films in the year,” says SACV chairman and director Dhilin Mehta.
Meanwhile, the company has got an enabling resolution to raise up to $100 million. The proposed utilisation of the proceeds is for expansion of existing activities of films production, distribution and investment in the wholly owned subsidiary company in Dubai.
“We are weighing options for raising the proposed amount and have obtained the shareholders’ nod,” says Mehta.
SACV had raised $33 million via FCCBs (foreign currency convertible bonds) last year.
The company has lined up 13 films which would release over the next two years. The ongoing projects are Blue, Luck, Run Bhola Run, One Way Ticket, Mudh Mudh Ke Na Dekh and Bond.
SACV plans to foray into the regional film market with Tamil and Telugu films.
Directed by Anthony D’Souza, Blue stars Sanjay Dutt, Akshaye Kumar, Lara Dutta, Katrina Kaif and Zayed Khan. The cast of Soham Shah’s Luck, which marks the debut of Kamal Hasan’s daughter Sruti Hassan, include Sanjay Dutt, Imran Khan, Danny Denzongpa, Ravi Kissen and Mithun Chakraborty.
Neeraj Vora‘s two films are Run Bhola Run starring Govinda, Tusshar Kapoor, Tanushree Dutta and Amisha Patel and One Way Ticket starring Anil Kapoor and Akshaye Khanna.
Shree Ashtavinayak has also closed two separate co-production deals with Sri Jaganaath Entertainment and Sanjay Dutt Productions. While it will be co-producing Mudh Mudh Ke Na Dekh with the former, it will co-produce Bond with the latter.
The company has also signed up directors like Rummi Jaffery, Vivek Sharma, Rohit Shetty and Imtiaz Ali for its untitled projects.
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.
