Hindi
PPC to release Ramchand Pakistani on 2 October
MUMBAI: Percept Picture Company’s (PPC) Ramchand Pakistani, second Pakistani film after Khuda Kay Liye, is set to release in India on 2 October. Directed by young Pakistani women film-maker Mehreen Jabbar, the film was earlier slated for 22 August release.
The film stars Bollywood actress Nandita Das, along with Pakistani actors Rashid Farooqui, Noman Ijaz, Maria Wasti, Navaid Jabbar and child actor Syed Fazal Hussain.
PPC joint MD Shailendra Singh said, “This film can’t be counted as a conventional Pakistani film just because it has been made in Pakistan. This is a distinctive film with broad appeal. This film reflects the tragedy of hundreds of innocent persons of either country who languish in jails of the other and the devastation for all their families.”
“We at Percept Picture Company are looking forward to the release of Ramchand Pakistani with loads of anticipation, as with the consecutive releases from across the boarder will lead to a much positive atmosphere amidst both the countries,” added Singh.
The plot of the movie is derived from a true story concerning the accidental crossing of the Pakistan-Indian border during a period of extreme, war-like tension between the two countries by two members of a Pakistani Hindu family belonging to the ‘untouchable‘ caste. It revolves around the boy and his father who accidentally cross the border into India from their village in Pakistan.
They end up spending five years in an Indian prison while the mother is left wondering about her husband‘s and son‘s whereabouts. The story aims to capture the plight of an eight-year old child who learns to cope with the trauma of forced separation from his mother while being held prisoner.
The film was selected for the narrative section of the Tribeca Film Festival 2008, New York and was also screened at the Seattle International Film Festival, June 2008 and 10th Osian Film Festival, New Delhi this July. It was selected for the Rhode August 2008 Island International Film Festival, USA as well.
The music of the film has been composed by Debajyoti Mishra and lyrics are by Anwar Maqsood. Shubha Mudgal and Shafqat Amanat Ali have given their voices to the music tracks and the film is written by Javed Jabbar.
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.
