Hindi
Percept Pictures, DQ Entertainment sign $25 mn deal for 3 animated films
MUMBAI: Percept Picture Company (PPC) and Hyderabad-based DQ Entertainment (DQE) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to produce three animated films with a total budget of around $25 million (approximately Rs 1 billion).
This is DQ Entertainment‘s first investment announcement after raising $56 million through its listing on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
As per the MoU, PPC and DQE will produce two films based on mythology, and the third one will be a Bollywood masala flick.
The films are slated to release in 2009 and 2010.
PPC MD Shailendra Singh said, “The Indian animation feature market today finds itself at unprecedented values since the whopper hit Hanuman (2005). The movie not only smashed records in the animation segment, but went on to achieve further heights when it broke DVD sales in 2006 followed by the release of PPC‘s Return of Hanuman in 2007.”
DQE CEO Tapaas Chakravarti said, “Bollywood‘s foray into animated Indian feature films with Hanuman has triggered many announcements of animated features by Bollywood houses. The business proposal and co-production understanding between PPC and DQE is aimed at bringing high-quality story telling and visuals and international success to India. We are excited about our plans with PPC and committed to producing high-quality animated films from India for the world.”
DQ Entertainment had earlier said that it would be producing a live action feature film every year, starting from 2008 along with an animated TV series every 18 months.
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.
