Hindi
Cinema Capital Venture Fund plans to raise $50 mn from overseas
MUMBAI: Cinema Capital Venture Fund (CCVF) has kicked off its second round of fund-raising activity in India as it plans to build a corpus size of Rs 7.5 billion to support film companies who are in need of financing to scale up their businesses.
CCVF is eyeing $50 million from overseas markets while the balance will be raised in India in three tranches. The first Sebi-registered film venture capital fund mopped up Rs 1.75 billion late last year, but is yet to invest in any projects.
“Our second round kicked off on 7 January and we have raised a further Rs 250 million. We are in the evaluation process and hope to announce two of our major investments in February. These are film content production companies,” CCVF promoter Samir Gupta tells Indiantelevision.com. He, however, did not reveal the name of the two companies.
CCVF is planning to raise Rs 5 billion with a greenshoe option of Rs 2.5 billion at a time when markets across the world are hit by financial woes.
The fund, which has been launched by a group of media professionals, will make a string of investments with deal sizes in the range of Rs 300-500 million. Picking up minority stakes, the aim is to build a wider, diversified portfolio.
“We are looking at content companies who are involved in producing films in Hindi and south Indian languages. We will help them scale up. Our stakes in these companies could range between 25 and 49 per cent but we would want the promoters to hold the majority,” says Gupta.
Gupta, however, rules out seeding ventures which are in the film distribution and exhibition business.
CCVF will be examining companies that have a track record. “We are looking at investing in content companies that have credibility in the market. The promoters should also have a five-year vision to take the company to the next level,” says Sanjay Bhattacharji, a key member in the senior management of CCVF.
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.
