Hindi
Drishyam’s Dhanak is ‘Best Children’s Film’, new ‘Kadvi Hawa’ gets special mention
MUMBAI: Drishyam Films’ much loved film Dhanak has won the 64th National Film Award for Best Children’s Film and their upcoming film, Kadvi Hawa has received a ‘Special Mention’ by the National Awards jury.
Drishyam Films’ next, Kadvi Hawa is directed by acclaimed filmmaker Nila Madhab Panda (of I am Kalam fame) and is a powerful and heartrending take on climate change. It stars Ranvir Shorey as a young bank loan recovery agent and Sanjay Mishra as a blind old farmer, two ordinary people fighting for survival in two extreme weather conditions not of their making. The film is slated for a nationwide theatrical release later this year and the producers have just released a first look poster of the film (attached below).
Directed by Nagesh Kukunoor, Dhanak stars Krrish Chhabria and Hetal Gada as the loveable siblings who set out on a magical, life-altering journey across Rajasthan. The film made its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival 2015 where it won two prestigious awards. It was released to critical and commercial acclaim on June 17, 2016.
Drishyam Films founder and producer of Dhanak and Kadvi Hawa Manish Mundra: “Even though all of our films have premiered and won awards at various prestigious international film festivals, the National Awards are the biggest honour for us. For me, as an Indian producer, there is no greater joy than being recognised by the government for our efforts to produce quality content-driven cinema. We are very excited to bring our films Rukh, Newton and Kadvi Hawa to the Indian audiences later this year.”
Kadvi Hawa: Once famous for farming, the people of Mahua in Rajasthan have forgotten the scent of rainfall on their soil. Lack of rainfall has led many farmers into debt traps set out as bank loans. Unable to grow food grain anymore and to escape repayments, many farmers have committed suicides. Hedu, the blind father of a farmer finds his son’s life threatened by the same pressure. Gunu Baba, a ruthless bank agent arrives with a growing list of suicides in his wake. But frequent cyclones threaten his family in a coastal village in Odisha. Each wanting to save their own family, they end up helping one another.
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.
