Hindi
SPE appoints Bob Osher as president of digital production
MUMBAI: Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE), a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, has announced Bob Osher as the president of its Digital Production division while Hannah Minghella will become president of production at Sony Pictures Animation.
The Digital Production division, formerly known as Sony Pictures Digital, is made of Imageworks and Sony Pictures Animation.
“Bob‘s experience in production and finance, along with his strong background in animation, make him qualified to lead our Digital Production division. Staying ahead of the vast technological changes occurring in our industry has been a priority for Sony Pictures, and I know Bob will continue to make our visual effects and animation business grow,” said SPE Chairman and CEO Michael Lynton.
Minghella currently serves as director of creative affairs for Sony Pictures Entertainment.
“For the past three years, she‘s been a key part of my team, actively engaged in our creative process every step of the way. She‘s going to do a great job working in concert with the incredibly accomplished team of writers, artists and all who make Sony Pictures Animation such an exciting part of this studio,” said SPE co-chairman Amy Pascal.
Minghella and Tim Sarnoff, president of Imageworks, will report to Osher who joined Sony Pictures in 2004. He has been chief operating officer of the Columbia Pictures Motion Picture Group, overseeing operations, business affairs and production-related film financing.
“Osher will continue to have oversight over his current areas of responsibility within the Motion Picture Group,” confirmed Lynton.
Osher will replace Yair Landau, who leaves Sony Pictures to begin a new games and animation venture.
Sandra Rabins, who had been in charge of Sony Pictures Animation as SEVP, will return to her roots as a producer and continue working with Sony Pictures Animation in that capacity.
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.
