Hindi
Dreamworks, Walt Disney stitch distribution pact
MUMBAI: After the termination of the distribution pact with Universal Studios last week, DreamWorks co-founder Steven Spielberg has moved into newer pastures to churn out the much-needed cash required to finance, market and distribute the Oscar-winning director‘s forthcoming slate in partnership with Reliance Big Entertainment.
DreamWorks Studios has secured a deal with Walt Disney Company. Under the terms, Disney will market and distribute at least six live-action films coming out of the Studio’s Touchstone Pictures banner each year. The first project from the production basket will be released sometime in 2010.
Reliance, a 50:50 partner with DreamWorks in a newly created company, will get to distribute these movies in India.
Under the new agreement, Disney will also provide a bridge financing loan to DreamWorks to match up to the $350 million coming in as equity from Reliance ADAG‘s pocket.
Disney stepped in after Dreamworks and Universal Studios axed their distribution pact signed last year following disagreements over financing.
The deal will help Disney boost its annual movie slate without incurring further financial risk. Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook said, “Spielberg has made some of the biggest films of all time and continues to be one of the great icons of our industry. Thus, his motion pictures will be the perfect compliment to the already robust slate of Disney.”
Last year, post the DreamWorks Studios-Paramount break up, Spielberg partnered with Reliance Big Entertainment to build a $1.5 billion company that would finance 32 movies over six years.
However, stung by the ongoing economic recession bug, the funding would now be raised in various legs. JPMorgan Chase & Co is arranging a $350 million debt within three months. Reliance will put in a similar amount as equity.
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.
