Hindi
India fails to make impact in Turkey’s Eurasian filmfest
ANTALYA: The Fourth Eurasian Film Festival has seen a marginal increase of participation from India in terms of delegates.
The festival did not have a single entry from India against at least one last year (Frozen by Shivajee Chandrabhushan). In fact, the festival last year also had greater Indian participation, at least three other films– Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth – the Golden Era, Asif Kapadia’s Far North and A Mighty Heart.
The festival this year has one Indian – Osian’s Raman Chawla – in the jury of the Network for Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) and for the first time has an Indian distributor – Sun Stone Entertainment of Mumbai headed by Sanjay Jumani – who has put up a stall in the three-day Film Market.
In addition, the market has three delegates including Kamal Jain of Superfine Films and Sashi B Kumar of Mudra Arts. Though in the the market, three others including Ultra’s S Narayanan and Sunil Doshi of Alliance Media (which procures films for NDTV Lumiere), failed to turn up.
Interestingly, Spierfilms of the United Kingdom which also has a stall in the market, has been marketing some Indian films like those by Priyadarshan.
The one Indian film which was slated for a Gala Screening here – Hindi thriller Mission Istanbul directed by Apoorva Lakhia – was cancelled because of what a festival spokesperson described as a break of communication between the Indian distributor and the festival authorities.
While the large gathering at the inaugural venue was held spell-bound by the highly popular singer Candan Encetin who performed for almost two hours, several senior personalities of Turkish cinema were honoured for their contributions. They included actress Hulya Avsar who received an award as a successful star, honorary award went to SESAM (Union of Professional Owners of Cinema Works) President Yilmaz Atadeniz, renowned actor Musfit Kenter who received the Yildrim Onal Memorial Award, and actress Filiz Akin who received a special medallion of the Golden Orange.
The 9-member jury headed by actor Tuncel Kurtiz will adjudge the Turkish feature films, a five member jury headed by director Selim Demirdelen will adjudge the National Short film competition and another five member jury headed by Günes Karabuda – Director (Jury President) will examine the entries for documentaries. There is also a jury for script development.
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.
