Hindi
‘Kasaav’ best film, UP most movie-friendly state in National Film Awards
NEW DELHI: While the Marathi film ‘Kasaav’ by Sumitra Bhave & Sunil Sukthankar has been named the best feature film in the 64th National Film awards, actor Akshay Kumar for ‘the Hindi film ‘Rustom’ and Surabhi C M for the Malayalam film ‘Minnaminungu–the Firefly’ have won the top awards for acting.
Rajesh Mapuskar for the Marathi film ‘Ventilator’ has been named best director in the Awards for 2016 announced at a press meet today. The state of Uttar Pradesh has been named as the Most Film Friendly state and Jharkhand gets a special mention in this category which was announced for the first time last year.
‘Fireflies in the Abyss’ by Chandrashekhar Roy got the best non-feature film award, while G. Dhananjayan was named best film critic and ‘Lata: Sur Gatha’ by Yatindra Mishra was given best book on cinema award.
The Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration has gone to the Assamese ‘Dikchow Banat Palaax’ by Sanjib Sabha Panditm while the Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director goes to the Bengali ‘Alifa’ by Deep Choudhury.
‘Dhanak; in Hindi by the renowned Nagesh Kukunoor gets the best Children’s film award while the Hindi ‘Mahayodha Rama’ by Rohit Vaid has been named the best Animation film.
‘Loktak Lairembee; in Manipuri by Haoban Paban Kumar is the best Environment Conservation / Preservation film; and the Hindi film ‘Pink’ starring megastar Amitabh Bachchan and directed by Anniruddha Roy Chowdhury is the best film on social issues.
Before the announcement of the awards, the Feature Film Central panel Chairperson and eminent filmmaker Priyadarshan, Non–Feature Film Jury Chairperson Raju Mishra and best Writing on cinema jury head Bhawana Somaaya along with Most Film Friendly State award chairman and Telugu director Radha Krishna Jagarlamudi presented their awards to Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore. They had presented the awards to Minister M Venkaiah Naidu yesterday.
The National Film Awards would be presented by President Pranab Mukherjee on 3 May which is the day on which the first-ever indigenous feature ‘Raja Harishchandra’ by D G Phalke was released in 1913.
In feature films, the highest number of awards went to Hindi (11) followed by Marathi (9); Malayalam (7); Tamil (5); Telugu, Bengali and Kannada (4 each); Assamese (3), and one each to Gujarati, Konkani and Manipuri. One award each also went to two languages not in Schedule VIII of the Constitution: Moran and Tulu.
The Best Female Playback Singer award went to Iman Chakraborty for the Bengali film ‘Praktan’ for the song ‘Tumi Jaake Bhalo Basho; and Sundharayyar was named best Male Playback Singer in the Tamil film ‘Joker’ for the song ‘Jasmine E’.
The best music direction award went to Bapu Padmanabha for the Kannada film ‘Allamma’. The best lyrics awards went to Vairamuthu and Anupama Roy for the song Entha Pakkam in ‘Dharma Durai’ (Tamil) and ‘Tumi Jaake Bhalo Basho’ in ‘Praktan’ (Bengali) respectively.
The best supporting female and male actor awards went to Zaira Wasim for the Hindi film ‘Dangal’ and Manoj Joshi for the Marathi film ‘Dashakriya’.
The special mentions went to Sonam Kapoor for her hijack drama film ‘Neerja’ (Hindi), ‘Kadvi Hawa’ (Hindi) to producer Eleeanora Images Private Ltd and director Nila Madhab Panda, ‘Mukti Bhawan’ (Hindi) for producer Red Carper Moving Pictures and director Shubhashish Bhutiani; and actor Adil Hussain for two films: ‘Mukti Bhawan’ and ‘Maj Rati Keteki’.
The best child artist award was shared by Adish Praveen, Nur Islam and Samiul Alam; and K Manohara for the films ‘Kunju Daivam’ (Malayalam); ‘Sahaj Pather Gappo; (Bengali); and ‘Railway Children’ (Kannada) respectively.
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.
