Hindi
PNC launches Guerrilla Flicks brand, plans 8 films this year
MUMBAI: Pritish Nandy Communications (PNC) is tapping the niche segment of viewers with a rollout plan of 50 movies over five years.
The films will be made under the Guerrilla Flicks brand. The series will be produced by Arindam Mitra (producer of Black Friday).
PNC believes the genre will attract young emerging audiences and has the potential to travel overseas.
The first eight films from the series will go on floors immediately. They will be directed by Abhijit Chaudhuri, Nikhil Bhatt (director and ad film maker), Shiv Subramanium (scriptwriter and playwriter), Somnath Sen (filmmaker) and Arindam Mitra. The project also includes first time directors like Debalaya Bhattacharya and Arjun Bagga.
The genres will vary from comedy and action to detective fiction and drama. “This is our way of staying one step ahead of market trends. We are anticipating the expectations of the new generation of movie viewers who are tired of Bollywood’s formula movies,” said PNC chairman Pritish Nandy.
Recently, PNC had inked a five film deal with actor-director Rajat Kapoor, three of which are currently under production stage. While Raat Gayi Baat Gayi is being directed by Saurabh Shukla, Saeed Mirza is directing Ek Tho Chance. A Rectangular Love Story is being directed by Rajat Kapoor. All the three films will be released this year.
PNC had also entered into two separate co-production deals with DQ Entertainment (DQE) and Sony Pictures.
While the deal between PNC and DQE states that the two companies will be co-developing and co-producing six movies within four years, the deal with Sony Pictures is for three films.
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.
