Hindi
Producer Manan approaches UTV to distribute cross-cultural film
MUMBAI: Producer-director Manan Katohora is in talks with UTV Motion Pictures to distribute his cross-cultural film When Kiran Met Karen in India.
Built on a budget of $150,000, the film is ready for release and targets the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) market globally along with the South Asian audience worldwide.
Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, Katohora said, “We are talking to different distributors for different markets. We are talking to UTV to distribute When Kiran Met Karen in India and they have showed a lot of interest.”
The film, which will be releasing in India in summer 2008, would initially penetrate into the metros before reaching out to the smaller markets. It will first be released in the LGBT market through Wolfe Video, which distributes LGBT films worldwide, and then open up in the South Asian market.
“We have approached Eros International to distribute the film in the South Asian market and they have given us a positive response, though the deal is still to be finalised,” added Manan.
Set in New York City, When Kiran Met Karen tells of the love story between a Bollywood actress and a struggling journalist.
“Since the subject matter is too bold, bonding of two women… Kiran – a bollywood actress and Karen – an American journalist… it can create controversies in India. But fundamentalist groups have to wake up and accept facts,” stated Manan.
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.
