Hindi
Lall on jury of Annecy International animated film festival
NEW DELHI: Media Entrepreneur and Hollywood film producer Bhuvan Lall and eminent animator Ram Mohan are to be members of the juries of the 32nd International Animated Film Festival of Annecy in France next month.
While Lall is a member of the Television and Commissioned programmes Jury, Ram Mohan will be a member of the Feature Films Jury at the Festival taking placing from 8 to 14 June. This year’s Annecy is special as it is paying a tribute to Indian production with three programmes of short films and two features.
There will be four juries: the short film jury has Z Big from Poland, Helene Tangay from Canada, Stephen Flint Muller (Germany), John Canemaker from the United States, and Richard Williams from the United Kingdom; and the Graduation films jury has Sylvie Porte and Allain Burose from France and David Silverman from USA.
“Apart from Lall, the other members on the TV jury are Nicole Keeb from Germany and Michel Beaudet from Canada. The Feature jury has, apart from Ram Mohan, Barry Purves from UK and Matt Greening from USA,” said Annecy Festival head of programming Laurent Million.
The Indian films in competition are in three categories. Vibrant Gujarat by Mihir Upadhyaya is the sole short film in competition. There are three TV films in competition: Camouflage and Ostrich by Priya Kuriyan, and Neki and Pooch Pooch Belly Dance by Suresh Kumar Eriyat. The three commissioned films in competition are Papa Chunnilal by Suresh Kumar Eriyat. Happy Durga Puja by Santosh D. Kale and Happy Dusshera by Kavita Singh Kale.
Apart from these, the animated feature Return of Hanuman by Anurag Kashyap and the graduation film Frobidden Fruit by Subhangi Subramaniam are out of competition.
The festival will also have an animation feature film, Sita Sings the Blues from the United States by Nina Paley of Indian origin. The film is a musical adaptation of Valmiki’s Ramayana.
The films in the Colours of India section in different categories include 30 animation films from the National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad), 15 each from Vaibhav Studios and Famous House of Animation of Mumbai, six from Nick India, five from the Animagic Special effects Pvt Ltd., two each from Industrial Design Centre and Tata Interactive Systems of Mumbai, and one each from Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics of Mumbai, Gitanjali Rao, Underground Worm, and Big Imagination of Pune. There is also one animation film from Flickerpix of Belfast.
Annecy has been the animation industry‘s leading international competitive festival for the past 45 years, presenting and promoting animation in all its different forms. The competition is open to feature films, short films, commissioned TV films and graduation films each using different animation techniques. The Festival includes film premieres, retrospectives, exhibitions and screenings.
Located close to the International Animated Film Festival, the market for Animation film is the global animation event for co-producing, buying, selling, financing and distributing animation content across all platforms. This three-day event brings together 1700 companies and key decision makers in animation for TV, cinema, VOD, video games, mobile phone and publishing and provides through different networking platforms, the best environment to imagine, buy and sell animation from today and the future.
Lall told indiantelevision.com, “Annecy has long been known to have recognized cutting edge animation from all over the world and I am looking forward for participating in the prestigious event as a member of the Jury.”
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.
