Hindi
Eight offerings at climate change film fest on 8 December
NEW DELHI: Global Climate Campaign, a lobby group facilitated by Kriti Film Club, is organising a special evening of films on climate change in New Delhi on 8 December.
The micro-fest, which will be held at the Gulmohar Hall, Indian Habitat Centre, will screen eight shorts, and will be open to anyone interested in the issue of climate change.
The festival will start at 6.30 pm and will be followed by a chat session with the film makers – Madhab Panda, Pallava Bagla – Science Editor, NDTV and some others.
The films will include those by Nitin Das (Global Warming – a fable from the Himalayas), a tiny, eight minute film shot near Tibet, a magical tale about a young boy who finds the solution to Global Warming from a monk in the mountains.
The entire cast of the film is from Kaaza, a small town in Spiti Valley. The film was made possible by spitiecosphere, an NGO based out of Spiti. The main intention of this film is to spread the message of how fast Global warming is impacting the fragile ecosystems.
Then there is a science film, “Changing Climates: The Science“, by Television Trust For The Environment, which lasts 27 minutes.
It deals with the widespead burning of fossil fuels starting with the steam engine and industrial revolution.
In the first of films on climate change, Earth Report takes a look back over 200 years of evolving scientific thought – sometimes confusing and contradictory – that has shaped the global warming debate.
This is followed by Climate Change – an Untold Story, a series of four films, winners of the UK Environment Fellowships, 2005
Nila Madhav Panda‘s film, “Climate‘s First Orphans“, tells the story of 20,000 homeless villagers in the coastal districts of Orissa, whose existence has been wiped out by the rising sea level.
“The Weeping Apple Tree” is a film by Vijay S. Jodha, and illustrates the complex issue of climate change by focusing on the shifting apple-growing belt in Himachal Pradesh.
Syed Fayaz will then be presenting his film, “A Degree of Concern“, which looks at the implications of climate change on glaciers, and how artificial glaciers are improving the water supply of Ladakh for now.
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.
