Hindi
Mukta Arts acquires negative rights of Marathi film Valu
MUMBAI: Mukta Arts has acquired the negative rights including worldwide distribution of Valu (the wild bull), a Marathi language film directed by Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni and produced by Aantarik Films.
The film has an ensemble of top Marathi talent including Atul Kulkarni, Dr. Mohan Agashe, Dilip Prabhavalkar, Bharati Acharekar, Girish Kulkarni, Nirmitee Sawant and others. The music is by Mangesh Dhakde.
This is Mukta Arts’ reaffirmation of its commitment to Marathi cinema. It has already been involved in another Marathi film “Kaande Pohe” which is directed by Rajiv Patil, produced by Shreyas Talpade and has Tushar Dalvi, Shilpa Tulaskar and Subhodh Bhave among others as star cast.
Mukta Arts promoter Subhash Ghai said that having spent his entire career in Maharashtra, he wanted to give back to society what he got from the wonderful state. “This is only our first step” said Ghai. “We look forward to promoting new and fresh talent from Maharashtra. Valu is the first film of a young director and has a high quality of production for a regional language film. This speaks volumes for the young fresh talent from the industry and Mukta Arts is always committed to promoting new talent”.
Umesh Kulkarni expressed confidence that the film would receive good visibility in the hands of Mukta Arts. He also felt that this would give him time to focus on his new venture which is underway. He also expressed the hope that in the hands of Mukta Arts the film would reach out to wider audiences as the film has a talented cast which unfolds a story around the entrapment of a wild bull on the run.
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.
