Hindi
India-China working on MoU for exchange of films
NEW DELHI: India is currently studying the possibility of a mechanism to ensure commercial release of Indian feature films in China and vice versa.
This was indicated by Information and Broadcasting ministry secretary Asha Swarup at the inauguration of a festival of Chinese films at the Sirifort Auditorium.
Swarup said that discussions had been held on a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in this connection.
Chinese ambassador to India Zhang Yan, who inaugurated the festival, referred to ancient ties between the two countries and the affinity in arts and culture including cinema.
Nine latest Chinese films including one based in Tibet are being screened in a reciprocal festival of films from China. Organised by the Directorate of Film Festivals, in collaboration with the China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) and the Chinese Embassy, the festival opened with the spectacular Gun of Mercy by Xiao Feng who was present along with principal actress Jiang Wu.
A high-level Chinese delegation is here to attend the festival, led by SARFT director general Tong Gang. Other members, besides Feng and Wu, include Luan Guochi who is director of the SARFT’s International Cooperation in the Film Bureau, film director Zhang Jianya and actress Liu Yiwel of the film Call for Love, China Movie Channel CCTV-6 VP Lu Hongshi, and SARFT Digital Film Programme deputy director general Mao Yu.
Gang told indiantelevision.com that his government wanted more films from India on a reciprocal basis, since some Indian films shown two or three decades earlier had proved very popular in his country.
Directorate of Film Festivals director Neelam Kapur said a festival of Indian films had been held in Beijing and Shanghai about 18 months earlier.
Apart from Gun of Mercy and Call for Love, the other films being screened are Fearless (Ronny Yu), The Banquet (Feng Xiaogang), Courthouse on the Horseback (Liu Jie), The Silent Holy Stones (Wanma Caidan from Tibet), A World without Thieves (Feng Xiaogang), Honeymoon (Chen Jun) and Perhaps Love (Peter Ho-Sun Chan).
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.
