Hindi
Children’s film festival begins 30 November
MUMBAI: Worldkids Foundation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of ‘entertainment with a purpose‘, announced the launch of the “Kotak Worldkids International Film Festival.”
The festival to be held in association with Kotak Mahindra Bank, Godrej Interio, BPL Mobile, AIAI, Ryan International School, Adlabs, P9 Integrated and with support from Department of Culture – Government Of Maharashtra, Children‘s Film Society of India (CFSI) and Times Foundation, will showcase the best of International and National award winning Animation, Documentaries, Shorts and Feature Films at the week long festival.
Adlabs, Wadala will screen and host Mumbai‘s first-of-its kind children‘s film festival targeted at 8-18 year olds. World Kids Foundation will be promoting the festival while P9-Cinema Activation will be marketing the event.
Some of the multi-award winning films which will be showcased during the festival are Red like the Sky –Italy, Hayat-Iran, Heda Hoda– India, Magnifico – Phillipines, An Inconvenient Truth – USA, Charkh– Iran, Summer with the Ghosts – Canada, Pinky & Million Pug – Germany, Halo – India, Malli – India, Bonkers – Holland and Benji – USA.
Explaining the reason behind initiating such a move, Festival Director Manju Singh said, “Our endeavor is to engage the children of India with positive media images and inspire them into thinking and learning while having a good time Entertainment with a Purpose is the Foundations mantra.”
“Kotak Worlkids International Film Festival will provide a platform for young and talented directors to reach a wider audience at the festival, thus hoping to encourage the wider film fraternity into dabbling more in the production of films for children,” asserted Vijay Kalantri, Chairman, Advisory Board, WKIFF.
Commenting on the occasion, Rahul Sinha, Group Brand Head, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd., said, “The idea of hosting this exclusive international film festival for children was first mooted with the Worldkids Foundation and I am delighted that this has come to fruition. It will be our endeavor to provide healthy and wholesome entertainment to children, help them enhance their knowledge, develop their character, broaden their perspective and help shape them into useful citizens of modern India.”
Talking about P9‘s participation to market the festival P9 Integrated CEO Navin Shah said, “Worldkids International Film Festival was more of an opportunity for us to be part of something that was not just huge by itself in its nature but also an opportunity for us to be providing a platform for the children of our nation. It is very crucial for us to imbibe good values and culture in our children and this festival promises to do the same.”
Commenting on the association with the WorldKids International Film Festival, BPL Mobile director and CEO S Subramaniam said, “We endeavour to contribute to the growth of the society in the best possible manner and hence we are privileged to be associated with this International Film Festival which proposes learning through entertainment to the children of today. This association will serve as a platform for us to help these children learn as they grow since we at BPL Mobile believe that it is the children of today who will take our country ahead in the future.”
Godrej Interio COO Anil Sain Godrej aid,” World Kids Festival is an opportunity for Godrej Interio (i-space) to interact with the children from these schools that will only help us as a company form a bigger and brighter relationship with each one of them.”
Adlabs Cinemas COO Tushar Dhingra said, “Kids are a very important part of our audience and this festival is a great opportunity for us to entertain them and their families in a healthy and whole some way.”
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.
