Hindi
NFDC to release ‘Via Darjeeling’ on 27 June
MUMBAI: The National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) is set to release Arindam Nandy’s Via Darjeeling on 27 June this year. The film will be distributed by PVR pan India.
Via Darjeeling, a co-production between NFDC and Moxie Entertainment, stars Kay Kay Menon, Parvin Dabas, Sonali Kulkarni, Vinay Pathak, Rajat Kapoor, Sandhya Mridul and Simone Singh. The film revolves around the age-old Bengali tradition of adda – where friends gather to exchange stories and gossip over drinks and dinner.
“Via Darjeeling has a very strong and interesting storyline. The concept of the film was very intriguing and stars several talented actors. Keeping in mind the repertoire of our previous films we thought Via Darjeeling had all the ingredients to be part of NFDC. I hope the film does well and encourages more young and talented filmmakers to make good and meaningful cinema,” said NFDC managing director Nina Lath Gupta.
Earlier this year, NFDC had announced that it would be releasing four films this fiscal that include The White Elephant, Lucky Red Seeds and Bioscope. While The White Elephant and Lucky Red Seeds are co-productions with NDTV Imagine and Mirchi Movies respectively, Bioscope is a solo production film from the NFDC stable.
Also, NFDC, which aims to promote the “Cinemas of India”, has been allocated a sum of Rs 300 million for five years by the Information & Broadcasting ministry for film production and promotion of new talent.
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.
