Hindi
Amritraj, UAE firm ink $250 mn movie production deal
MUMBAI: Imagenation Abu Dhabi, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Media Company, has signed a $250 million financing deal with Ashok Amritraj‘s Hollywood-based Hyde Park Entertainment.
As per the deal, Hyde Park Entertainment will get the financial support to develop, produce and distribute feature films. The agreement aims to create up to 20 films over seven years and will include additional financing for the production of local language and cross-cultural films.
Hyde Park Entertainment will also establish its regional headquarters at ‘Two Four 54,’ the recently unveiled free media zone in Abu Dhabi.
Hyde Park Entertainment chairman and CEO Ashok Amritraj said, “We intend to produce films that stretch from Hollywood to Asia, enabling us to foster a better understanding between the West, the Middle East and Asia.”
Imagenation Abu Dhabi chairman Mohamed Khalaf Al-Mazrouei added, “Abu Dhabi‘s investment with international media partners is putting the Emirate in the global spotlight at a critical time for the movie industry. Through partnerships like this one with Hyde Park, we can create feature films which open a window on Middle Eastern and Asian culture, enabling audiences around the world to look in and appreciate the region‘s rich and increasingly dynamic heritage.”
In addition to its Abu Dhabi headquarter, Hyde Park‘s LA base will provide a front office function. Hyde Park‘s EVP Patrick Aiello will supervise creative affairs for the partnership, while newly named President of Hyde Park International Mimi Steinbauer will handle foreign sales for pictures produced by the company. Imagenation Abu Dhabi CFO Stefan Brunner will oversee the financial aspects of the joint venture.
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.
