Hindi
Mirchi Movies, Maverick Productions to co-produce Aloo Chaat
MUMBAI: Mirchi Movies Limited is co-producing Robby Grewal‘s Aloo Chaat with Anuj Saxena‘s Maverick Productions. The film starring Aftab Shivdasani and Aamna Shariff (of Kahi To Hoga fame) went on floors on Monday (25th February). The shooting will be in Mumbai & Delhi.
Mirchi Movies Limited COO Munish Purii stated, “Aloo Chat is based on a terrific family-comedy script and the film‘s story has all the elements of universal appeal. This film will release sometime after summer 2008.”
The technical team of Aloo Chaat comprises Sanjay Kapoor as the DoP, editor Aarif Sheikh, who had previously worked on films like Samay, Maqbool and Omkara, and RDB and Samirrudin, who would be scoring songs for the film.
Maverick Productions CEO Anuj Saxena stated, “Maverick is delighted to partner with Mirchi Movies and both will work together to produce an impactful film. Maverick has recently completed three successful years in the industry and has a wide portfolio ranging from TV shows, films, awards show, documentaries and advertisements and we surely intend to make more movies in coming months”.
Mirchi Movies, a subsidiary of Times Infotainment Media, has around 12-15 feature films in its kitty that will release over the next 3 years. The company has three movies that stand nearly completed – Hari Puttar-A Comedy of Terrors (Hindi), Vellitherai (Tamil) and Manjadikuru (Malayalam).
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.
