Hindi
Videsh-Heaven On Earth to hit Indian screens on 27 March
NEW DELHI: Deepa Mehta‘s Heaven on Earth, a woman-centric movie that was nominated at the 24th Genie Awards, is set to hit the Indian theatres on 27 March under the title, Videsh – Heaven On Earth. In a bid to reach out to a greater audience set, the film will be released in Hindi.
Co-produced by BR Films and Hamilton Films, Videsh – Heaven On Earth stars Preity Zinta as the lead protagonist and revolves around the theme of women empowerment.
Written by Mehta, the cinematography of the film was handled by Giles Nuttgens. The music is composed by Mychael Danna. Videsh also stars Balinder Johal, Ramanjit Kaur, Gourrav Sihan, Rajinder Singh Cheema, Orville Maciel, Geetika Sharma, and Yanna McIntosh and marks the debut of Vansh Bhardwaj.
Videsh revolves around the life of a young girl from rural hinterland of Punjab who migrates to Canada, post marriage. The film deals with the issue of domestic violence that a young bride undergoes at the hands of her expatriate husband.
Videsh was originally released in Punjabi and English. It won the best actress award for Preity Zinta in Chicago.
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.
