Hindi
Women filmmakers’ northeast works to be highlighted at India fest in NY
NEW DELHI: Three films from northeast India and a special focus on films made by women filmmakers will be the highlights of the second edition of the India Kaleidoscope Film Festival (IKFF) to be held in New York next month. The festival is being presented by the Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI) and The India Centre Foundation (ICF) from 9 to 12 November 2017.
Drishyam Films’ Kadvi Hawa directed by Nila Madhab Panda will open the festival and it will close with Director Prakash Kunte’s Cycle. Actor-turned-produced Priyanka Chopra’s Pahuna and Anurag Kashyap’s Mukkabaaz will also feature at the festival.
The films to be screened will explore the most relevant and pressing topics facing the subcontinent, are being made by today’s most progressive filmmakers working in regional languages. This year, India Kaleidoscope will span seven different regional Indian languages and include new programming initiatives that bring independent regional Indian cinema to an even wider audience.
The India Centre Foundation Founding Director Priya Giri Desai said “It is an honour to offer these cinematic works to the film-going community and to give exposure to new sights, sounds and languages from across the Indian subcontinent.”
Museum of the Moving Image Chief Curator David Schwartz said, “India Kaleidoscope, in just its second year, is already making a great impact as a showcase for the incredible diversity of Indian cinema, with its focus on artistic and independent films from the many regions of this sprawling, culturally rich country.”
“Indian cinema today is independent and regional language cinema, and these films represent the best and most exciting work from the country. We are thrilled to present this eclectic and wholly original selection of films and filmmakers to the New York and US audience,” said Sudeep Sharma, Festival Programmer.
India Kaleidoscope Film Festival 2017 will screen eight feature films, seven of which will be US or North American premieres. Most of the films will feature directors in person, and a major chunk of the programming lineup feature films directed by women filmmakers.
In an effort to expand IKFF to wider audiences, this year’s closing night screening will be held at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Theatre in Manhattan. All films will be screened with English subtitles.
The IKFF 2017 programming committee includes Priya Giri Desai (The India Center Foundation), Ashok Sinha (The India Center Foundation), Priyadarshini Shanker (NYU Cinema Studies), Anupama Kapse (Loyola Marymount), Tristine Skyler (Writer and Producer), Ritesh Mehta (Film Independent) and Sudeep Sharma (Film Programmer); with additional programming support from Uma da Cunha and Christina Marouda (Museum of the Moving Image, IFFLA).
The films are: Kadvi Hawa in Hindi stars Sanjay Mishra, Ranvir Shorey, and Tillotama Shome; Mukkabaaz in Hindi has Vineet Kumar Singh, Zoya Hussain, and Jimmy Shergill; Sonar Baran Pakhi by director Bobby Sarma Baruah in Rajbangshi stars Pranami Borah, Arati Barua, and Pranjal Saikia; Prakasan by Director Bash Mohammed stars Dinesh Prabhakar, and Laya Krishna; Pahuna by director Paakhi Tyrewala in Sikkimese stars Ishika Gurung, Anmoul Limboo, and Manju KC Nanu; and Cycle by director: Prakash Kunte in Marathi stars Hrishikesh Joshi, Priyadarshan Jadhav, and Bhalachandra Kadam.
The documentaries are Up Down And Sideways (Kho ki pa lü) by directors Anushka Meenakshi and Iswar Srikumar in Chokri on rice cultivators, and Last Days. Last Shot by director Sumira Roy in Hindi/Bengali/Bhojpuri on how Life and death co-exist every day on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi.
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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.
