Hindi
Taapsee Pannu-starrer ‘Rashmi Rocket’ to directly premiere on Zee5
Mumbai: Video streaming platform Zee5 is set to premiere Tapsee Pannu-starrer sports drama “Rashmi Rocket” on 15 October. The film is produced by Ronnie Screwvala, Neha Anand and Pranjal Khandhdiya under RSVP and Mango People Media.
“At Zee5, we have constantly strived to bring audiences richer experiences with versatile content that is not just entertaining but also a reflection of us as a collective society,” said Zee5 India chief business officer Manish Kalra. “Rashmi Rocket is riveting, relevant, and will have you cheering, empathising, and questioning. It’s cinema that moves you.”
Set in the salt marshes of Kutch, the film is about a young village girl who is an incredibly fast runner, nurturing the ambition of crossing the finish line some day. In the journey to fulfilling her dreams, she soon realises that the race is peppered with many hurdles, and what seems like an athletic contest turns into a personal battle for respect, honour, and identity.
“Rashmi Rocket” is written by Nanda Periyasamy, Aniruddha Guha, and Kanika Dhillon and directed by Akarsh Khurana. The film also features Supriya Pathak, Abhishek Banerjee, Priyanshu Painyuli, and Supriya Pilgaonkar in pivotal roles.
“So many immensely talented youth do not reach their full potential or even have opportunities owing to the obstacles the system and society throw at them. Rashmi Rocket is one such example of someone who faced those obstacles head-on and overcame them,” said RSVP’s Ronnie Screwvala on the film. “It’s a story of resilience, determination, and above all, the fighting human spirit.”
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.
