Hindi
Separate festivals of Spanish, Australian films in March
NEW DELHI: Separate film festivals of acclaimed films from Australia and Spain are to take place in the capital this month which will later be taken to some other cities in the country.
The Spanish film festival, the third to be held here, represents the best in the latest films from that country. It will be held in Delhi from 6 to 10 March and in Thiruvananthapuram from 11 to 15 March.
While all the other Spanish films will be screened at the Indian Habitat Centre, the festival in Delhi will conclude on 10 March in Sirifort Auditorium with the screening of Fados, a film based on the popular musical form of that name. The screening in Delhi will include a conversation with its maker Carlos Saura and renowned film critic Aruna Vasudev. Fados was the closing film at the International Film Festival of India in Goa in November-December 2007.
La Noche De Los Girasoles (The Night of the Sunflowers) by Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo is the opening film in both Thiruvananthapuram and Delhi.
The other films are El Camino De Los Ingleses (Summer Rain) by Antonio Banderas; Los Dos Lados De La Cama (The Two Sides of the Bed) by Emilio MartÃnez Lázaro; Salvador by Manuel Huerga; El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan‘s Labyrinth) by Guillermo del Toro; Vete de mà (Go Away From Me) by VÃctor GarcÃa León; Alatriste by AgustÃn DÃaz Yanes; and Caotica Ana (Chaotic Ana) by Julio Medem.
The film Yo Soy La Juani (My Name is Juani) by Bigas Luna will be screened in Thiruvananthapuram but not in Delhi.
The Spanish film festival has been organised by the Cultural Centre of the Spanish Embassy and Casa India in collaboration with the Directorate of Film Festivals.
Organised by the Australian High Commission in collaboration with the Directorate of Film Festivals, the Australian film festival, Australian Visions, will open in the capital at Sirifort Auditorium on 6 March with Jindabyne by Ray Lawrence. Other films are The Caterpillar Wish by Sandra Sciberras, Three Dollars by Robert Connelly, Swimming Upstream by Russel Mulcahey, Ned Kelly by Gregor Jordan, Dirty Deeds by David Caesar, Somersault by Cate Shortland, La Spagnola by Steve Jacoba, and The Rape in Placid Lake by Tony McNamara.
The festival will later travel to Hyderabad from 8 to 10 March and Bangalore from 14 to 17 March, where some other Australian films will be screened. These are Lantana by Ray Lawrence, Harvie Krumpet, The Tracker by Rolf De Heer, and Australian Rules by Paul Goldman.
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.
