Hindi
Shemaroo cracks DVD piracy racket at Brussels Airport
MUMBAI: Shemaroo entertainment, along with the local distributor and SIFAM (Stitching Indian Films & Music), has seized 50,000 DVDs at Brussels Airport.
Of these 50,000 DVDs, approximately 25,000 DVDs are of the week-old film Mere Baap Pehle Aap, produced by Shemaroo and still running in cinemas worldwide.
The other DVDs, which were seized at the spot, include song compilations and various other movies.
The information about the DVDs at the Brussels Airport was obtained with the help of Indian Film Exporters Association and Shemaroo’s sources.
As per Brussels airport customs, every month a consignment of 20,000 – 30,000 DVDs land. Since there are no claimants or complaints, the authorities in spite of having the knowledge of these DVDs being pirated, do not act upon.
A company based out of Hong Kong apparently manufactures these pirated DVDs, which are later exported worldwide.
As per industry experts, for every new film, in the first week itself around 35,000 to 40,000 pirated DVDs are distributed in Europe, where the entry points are Frankfurt and Brussels primarily.
As Europe in size is a very big market for Bollywood titles, pirates first attack this market rather than USA and UK among others.
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.
