Hindi
UTV recovers cost before Goal release
MUMBAI: UTV Motion Pictures claims to have got close to Rs 160 million by selling a bunch of rights for its soon-to-be released Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal.
“We have recovered our cost of production even before Goal‘s worldwide theatrical release on 23 November. We have sold different rights and the revenue from the home video segment is based on projections. Bindass is our brand partner,” says UTV EVP marketing, distribution and syndication Siddharth Roy Kapur.
The cost recovery comes from syndication of satellite and music rights, territory pre-sales, home video, in-film advertising with brands like Reebok, Western Union and Gillete.
The music rights have been sold to T-Series. “We can‘t disclose whom we have sold the other rights to,” says Kapur.
So were the satellite telecast rights sold to Bindass? “We can‘t say anything at this stage,” says Kapur.
UTV has a joint venture with Malaysia‘s Astro for Bindass.
To promote the film, the star cast of Goal have appeared in reality talent shows like Nach Baliye3, Jhalak Dikhla Jaa 2, Voice of India and Indian Idol 3.
As promotional campaign, Reebok, which sponsored the clothing line in the film, will retail the ‘Goal‘ range across 535 outlets in India. There will also be co-branded window-displays in Reebok showrooms promoting the ‘Goal‘ collection, which includes apparel and accessories related to football that figure in the movie.
UTV has also licensed the gaming rights for the film to Indiagames, which has tied up with FIFA to launch the Goal-FIFA challenge on the games-on-demand platform. UTV holds majority stake in Indiagames.
ESPN Star Sports will integrate the catch-line of ‘Goal – Duniya Goal Hai‘ to promote English Premier League matches to be telecast on ESPN in the month of November.
John Abraham and Bipasha Basu will promote the line on ESPN Star Sports through channel ID‘S all through November when the channel will run a contest to select five winners who get to watch an English Premier League match in the UK.
UTV has tied up with Zee Sports to organise the ‘Goal Bus Tour‘ in Delhi. The entire Goal team comprising the lead actors and other players of Southall Team have visited malls, schools and colleges in Delhi and interacted with their fans.
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.
