Hindi
Asianet names winners of Ujala-Asianet Film Award 2009
MUMBAI: Kerala-based Asianet Communication has announced the winners of the 11th Annual Asianet Film Awards 2009.
While Malayalam superstar Mohanlal has been named the Best Actor for Madambi, South Indian actress Gopika has won the Best Actress title for Veruthe Oru Bharya.
Akku Akbar won the award for Best Director for Veruthe Oru Bharya and Jayaram swept away the most popular actor title for the same. AMMA‘s recent multi-starrer Twenty: Twenty, directed by Joshy, has been named as the Best Film.
Legendary singer KJ Yesudas won the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the Malayalam film industry. The special award for patriotic film went to Kurukshetra, directed by Major Ravi. Jagathy Sreekumar won the special jury award.
Among other winners were: Character artiste Innocent (Innathe Chintha Vishayam), Samvrutha Sunil (Minnaminnikoottam), villain Siddique (Madambi), comedian Salim Kumar (Annan Thambi), lyricist Gireesh Puthencherry (Madambi, song ‘Amma mazhakarinu‘), music director Vidyasagar (Mulla), playback singers M.G. Sreekumar (‘Kando kando kakkakuyile‘– Innathe Chintha Vishayam), Swetha Mohan (‘Kuyile kuyile‘ – Novel), child artiste Baby Nivedita (Innathe Chintha Vishayam) cameraman MJ Radhakrishnan (Adayalangal, Thirakatha), editor Renjan Abraham (Veruthe Oru Bharya, Mulla), best pair Jayasurya-Roma (Minnaminnikoottam, Shakespeare M.A. Malayalam), debut artistes Vineeth Sreenivasan (Cycle) and Meera Nandan (Mulla).
The awards will be presented on 17 January.
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.
