Hindi
UTV Motion Pictures makes into top 20 distributors list in US
MUMBAI: UTV Motion Pictures has emerged amongst the top 20 film distributors in North America, according to the US box office performance in the first six months of 2008.
UTV releases grossed $5.48 million in the first 28 weeks of the year, making the company the leading Indian motion picture distributor in the United States and the only foreign language movie distributor in the Top 20.
The Company claims to have achieved this rank with three releases this year, namely Jodhaa Akbar ($3.44 million), Race ($ 1.37 million) and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na ($539,857). The box office total was also supported by Aamir Khan‘s Taare Zameen Par, which was released in December 2007 but which continued its run into 2008.
“Entering the Top 20 is a major achievement for an Indian studio, given the fact that the market for Indian movies in the US is a small fraction of the mainstream American market. This is especially remarkable considering that UTV is one of the youngest Indian film distributors in North America, having established operations in the US only four years ago in 2004,” said UTV Motion Pictures CEO Siddharth Roy Kapur.
UTV’s latest release, Kismat Konnection, starring Shahid Kapur and Vidya Balan, has garnered approximately $280,000 in its opening weekend.
UTV‘s forthcoming films include Madhur Bhadarkar‘s Fashion, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra‘s Delhi 6 and Main Aur Mrs Khanna, a co-production with Sohail Khan Productions.
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.
