Hindi
CDI to invest $63 mn in animation film; to acquire 50% in Laser Infomedia
MUMBAI: Compact Disc India (CDI) has earmarked $63 million (Rs 3.09 billion) for production, gaming, and merchandising of an animation film based on soccer. The Chandigarh-based company has roped in soccer legend Pele as an executive producer for the movie.
CDI has agreed to buy 50 per cent in Laser Infomedia Ltd, a gaming development firm. It will invest Rs 927 million for the multi-platform gaming development project.
“While the animation film will have a budget of $20 million, we will invest $23 million in developing the gaming project and $10 million towards merchandising. A further $10 million will be towards merchandising,” Compact Disc India chairman Suresh Kumar tells Indiantelevision.com.
CDI plans to release the film just before the Fifa World Cup in 2010. “Developing the game will take us around 18 months,” says Kumar.
CDI has also approved a mid-term loan of $10 million offered by iMedia Ventures at Libor plus 175 basis points for a period of 10 years. “This loan is secured in a foreign company promoted by CDI,” says Kumar.
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.
