Hindi
IFFI Goa pays centenary tributes to Bimal Roy, Devika Rani and LV Prasad
MUMBAI: The ongoing International Film Festival of India (IFFI) is paying tributes to Bimal Roy, Devika Rani and LV Prasad in a special section of ‘Centenary Tributes’.
In total, eight movies are being screened in the Centenary Tributes section.
Retrospective of Bimal Roy opened with his classic Do Bigha Zamin on the first day of the festival preceded by Remembering Bimal Roy, a non-feature film and Indian Panorama entry by his son Joy Bimal Roy. 11 July, 2009 will mark the birth centenary of the legendary film maker Bimal Roy.
Roy had ushered a new chapter in Indian cinema in terms of both, a deeply human content and a realistic style of film-making, with films like Udayer Pathey and Do Bigha Zamin, says festival brochure of Indian Panorama.
Also, the Retrospective includes Bandini, Devdas and Gautama the Buddha.
Among the others are Devika Rani and LV Prasad. Rani had been a dominant presence on the Indian film scenario in the early years of Indian cinema. She, along with her husband Himansu Rai, contributed significantly through collaboration on international projects and professionally run Bombay Talkies. In the festival, Karma, a 1933 classic produced by Himansu Rai and directed by JL Freerhunt (casting both Himansu and Devika), is being screened as a tribute.
Akkineni Lakshmi Varaprasada Rao, popularly known as LV Prasad, was a Dada Saheb Phalke Award winner with a huge repertoire in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada. His Dadi Maa and Ek Duje Ke Liye are being featured as tribute to the doyen.
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.
