Hindi
Titus Upputuru’s short film shines bright at Indian Cine Film Festival 2022
MUMBAI: “Nip in the bud”, a short film by the media conglomerate, Times Internet, has won big at the Indian Cine Film Festival. Written by famous adman, Titus Upputuru, it has been awarded the Best Screenplay award and the Best Public Service award at the event.
Titus is the man behind the screenplay and has also directed the film. Elaborating on the win, The Titus Upputuru Company founder and chief creative officer Titus said, “Wow, I am so thrilled! I thank God for these awards and dedicate them to every voice that had the courage to share the abuse that happened at their workplaces. I am also glad that a film like this has been recognized and awarded at so many award shows as I believe that voices like these influence, inspire and contribute towards rooting out this very diabolic, sickening culture from our society.”
The film opens on a young girl weeping profusely and with a determined look, she knows what she wants to do. The very fact that her business role model, a business tycoon, tried to get awkwardly close to her, breaks her apart. But it obviously doesn’t break her confidence and grit to make sure that the world knows about his misdeeds – she walks into a café and pens a note on social media to share the horrific experience. The film takes a twist when we see the post being read by a woman, realising to her horror that it was the same man who abused her years ago. A photograph on the mantle reveals that the two women were related and happen to be mother and daughter. The film ends with the message ‘If you are delaying, you may be encouraging’.
For the record, “Nip in the Bud” also won the prestigious DadaSaheb Phalke Award earlier this year.
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.
