Hindi
IFC pockets Rs 5 billion at 2008 box office
MUMBAI: The Indian Film Company (IFC) has announced that its releases since 1 April, 2008 have accumulated an estimated Rs 5.05 billion in gross worldwide box office takings.
The company claims to have in 2008 set new opening week and opening weekend box office records on two occasions. In August, Singh Is Kinng created a new worldwide and India opening week and opening weekend box office records which was later broken in December by the Aamir Khan-starrer Ghajini, also released by TIFC in India.
According to IFC, Ghajini set record breaking opening weekend and opening week gross box office takings in India with Rs 700 million and Rs 1.1 billion respectively.
Ghajini was released on 1,500 screens across India, while Singh Is Kinng had been released on 1,400 screens.
In October, the company released Golmaal Returns while in May IFC released two co-productions – Bhoothnath and Ranga Panduranga, a Telugu film which marked the company‘s entry into regional cinema.
Recently, IFC‘s first international film, Little Zizou, won awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Producer at international film festivals in New York and Singapore.
In 2008, IFC also set a new model in the Indian film industry for the sale of music rights for a limited period by selling the Singh Is Kinng soundtrack rights for a limited duration, the company said. This practice was repeated for Kidnap and Dil Kabaddi.
IFC CEO – advisory company Sandeep Bhargava said: “The fact that our releases have dramatically broken previous industry records speaks volumes for the quality of the film slate, as well as hard work of the team in maximising the revenue potential of the portfolio through innovative marketing and distribution strategies. 2008 has been a record breaking year for IFC and the company is well placed to continue strengthening its position in 2009.”
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.
