Hindi
UTV licenses home video rights to Moser Baer
MUMBAI: After distributing 15 Hindi movies, UTV Software Communications is apparently exiting the home video business.
The company has entered into a strategic alliance with Moser Baer Entertainment Limited (MBEL), selling its exclusive home video distribution rights for 25 movies. UTV has been paid an undisclosed MG (minimum guarantee) amount and after a particular threshhold is reached, it will also enjoy a revenue share with Moser Baer.
As per the alliance, MBEL will get domestic rights to UTV‘s home video catalogue which comprises 10 Bollywood films. Moser Baer Entertainment will also get home video rights to all UTV productions released until mid 2009.
The acquisition gives Moser Baer Entertainment access to premium content from UTV, which is planning to release 15 new films over the next six months.
Says UTV Motion Pictures CEO Siddharth Roy Kapur, “The home video business in India is growing significantly and with the kind of revenue potential it has, it can no longer be seen as just another ancillary revenue stream. It makes strategic sense for us to license home video rights of our films to a company like Moser Baer Entertainment, which has particular expertise in this area and is instrumental in growing the home video market in the country. This gives our movies unparalleled access to millions of potential new viewers.”
UTV will also hand over the home video rights to the slate of world cinema titles it has acquired. “We will be doing a separate deal with Moser Baer for world movies in the first quarter of next year,” Kapur says.
The DVDs for the Hindi movies are being priced at Rs 99. The time window for DVD will vary between 4-8 weeks of theatrical release.
Says MBEL CEO Harish Dayani, “Moser Baer‘s entertainment business is working towards the consolidation of the home video space in India. Our strategy is based on the twin pillars of affordable prices to curb piracy and everywhere distribution to drive mass consumption. UTV has emerged in recent times as one of the leading studios in the country and its home video titles add lustre to our product line. This development further reinforces our position as the dominant player in the home video space in India.”
Moser Baer has a predominant collection of catalogue movies. The deal with UTV will help it to expand widely into new film content.
Moser Baer is also looking at releasing sports DVDs over the next six months, Dayani adds.
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.
