Hindi
BR Films invests Rs 650 million for three films
MUMBAI: Bollywood major BR Films has pumped in Rs 650 million for the slate of three films that will hit the box office in 2008.
BR Films promoter Ravi Chopra says, “Our lineup for the films to release in 2008-10 is finalised, and each year is equally distributed.”
In 2008, the first film to hit the screen from the BR Films stable is Bhootnath starring Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan in a cameo role. The Rs 250-300 million film is directed by debut director Vivek.
Next is Rs 200 million Banda Ya Bindass Hain directed by Ravi Chopra. Currently under production, the comedy film will be released in July.
The last offering from the stable in 2008 is Heaven on Earth. BR Films has infused Rs 200 million for the film directed by Deepa Mehta. Starring Preity Zinta, the film shows the treatment of women married to NRI husbands.
With six films on the cards, the year 2009 seems busier for BR films. Of these, Kohinoor, Pocket Maar, Betiyaan and Stella deserve special mention, with Stella to be directed by Deepa Mehta.
The company will foray into animation in 2009, with the release of its first animated film Paanch Pandav. It has acquired 73 per cent in the Mumbai-based animation and post production studio Pix-n-Trix. It has also relocated Pix-n-Trix to a larger premise at Film City located at Goregaon in Mumbai.
Besides, epic-based film Mahabharata is also in the pipeline. Expected to hit the screens in 2010, the film will be in two parts. Each of the two 3-hour parts will be released on two consecutive Fridays.
Ravi Chopra explains, “The Mahabharata is a long epic that needs more time than two hours for a better presentation. So we decided to split it into two parts, releasing the film on two consecutive Fridays. The first part will end with the cheer-haran episode; the second will follow from the same.”
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.
