Hindi
Jio MAMI: ‘The Lady of the Lake’, Konkona Sen awarded
NEW DELHI: David Chou’s Diamond Island and Haobam Paban Kumar’s The Lady of the Lake won the top Golden Gateway Awards in the International and National categories respectively in the MAMI International Film Festival.
Mastercard gave Konkona Sen Sharma the Best Female filmmaker. Mastercard recently partnered with the Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival with Star as a sponsor for the Best Female Filmmaker Award for the Festival held in Mumbai from 20 to 27 October.
The festival showcased some of the latest cutting-edge, independent cinema and art house fare alongside genre movies from Bollywood, Hollywood and cult international movies. Mastercard South Asia Country Corporate Officer, India and Division President Porush Singh handed over the award to Konkona for the film ‘A Death in the Gunj’.
Porush said, “MAMI has been a brilliant platform bringing the best of world and Indian cinema to Indian audiences. We at Mastercard are delighted to associate with MAMI and feel privileged to recognize the MAMI Best Female Filmmaker for the year 2016. This award is a validation of our commitment to empower and enable women across all walks of life.”
The Festival screened over 180 films from 70 countries. The finale ceremony, hosted by Vickey Kaushal and Shweta Tripathi of Masaan, was attended by directors like Vishal Bhardwaj, Rajkumar Hirani, Kabir Khan, Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap, actresses Sonam Kapoor and Richa Chadha besides several others.
Undoubtedly, the stars of the night were Anupama Chopra, Kiran Rao, and Smriti Kiran, the three women who painstakingly put the festival together, sourcing films from across the globe, arranging carefully planned masterclasses, besides hosting a number of other sessions, and one very memorable reunion of the cast and crew of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander.
Festival Director Jio MAMI with Star Anupama Chopra added, “MAMI is and has always been at the forefront of promoting excellence in cinema, be it unique, cutting edge parallel cinema or mainstream Bollywood cinema. The award for the Best Female Film-maker, presented by Mastercard was a tough choice for the jury as we sifted through many pieces of creative work. We hope to see more women come forward to directing or being a part of the creative process of cinema and thus contributing to the heritage of the Indian film fraternity.”
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
Silver Gateway Award – Ralitza Petrova’s Godless.
The Jury Grand Prize Natalia Almada’s Everything Else.
Special Mention for Political Commitment of the Film – When Two Worlds Collide.
The Special Mention – Macarena Arias’s Alba.
INDIA GOLD
Silver Gateway Award – Satish Babusenan and Santosh Babusenan’s The Narrow Path.
Jury Grand Prize – Aicheng Jai Dohutia’s The Hidden Corner.
Special Mention – Deepak Sampath’s Autohead
Special Mention – Shirley Abraham and Amit Madhesiya’s Cinema Travellers.
DIMENSIONS MUMBAI
Golden Gateway Award – Santosh Ganpat Kamble for Mumbai’s Mahuwa.
Silver Gateway Award – Tabu Kaariya’s Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh.
Special Mention (Dimensions Mumbai) Award – Yashwardhan Goswami’s Bombai.
HALF TICKET
Golden Gateway Award (Feature) – Laha Mebow’s Hang in There, Kids!
The Silver Gateway Award (Feature) – Evi Goldbrunner and Joachim Dollhopf’s At Eye Level.
Special mention (Feature) – Mrinmoy Mondal, Shupratim Bhol’s Colours of Innocence.
The Golden Gateway Award (Short) – Vincent Patar and Stephane Aubier’s A Town Called Panic: Back to School.’
The Silver Gateway Award (Short) – Nina Sabnani’s We Make Images.
Special Mention (Short) – Pedro Paulo De Andrade’s The Best Sound in the World.
Oxfam awarded Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under my Burkha for Best Film on Gender Equality while the Audience Choice Award went to The Salesman by Asghar Farhadi.
The Young Critics Choice Award was won by Shirley Abraham and Amit Madhesiya’s Cinema Travellers.
The Special Mention for Excellence in Writing on Cinema (Hindi) went to Naye Daur Ka Naya Cinema by Priyadarshan, whle the Special Mention for Excellence in Writing on Cinema (English) went to Kanan Devi: The First Superstar of Indian Cinema by Mekhala Sengupta.
Excellence in Writing on Cinema Award (Hindi) – Bhartiye Cinema Ka Itihas by Anil Bhargava.
Excellence in writing on Cinema Award (English) – The World of Hrishikesh Mukherjee by Jai Arun Singh.
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.
