Hindi
WGA reaches interim agreements with Intermedia, Film Department
MUMBAI: The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has reached interim agreements with the Film Department and Intermedia. The guild says that it continues to sign agreements with companies that value the essential role writers play in making films, television programmes and content for new media.
WGA West president Patric M Verrone and WGA East president Michael Winship said, “Companies like Intermedia and the Film Department recognise the importance of signing a deal that compensates writers fairly for the work they do. In turn, we have designed an agreement for the entertainment industry that takes into account the economic realities that it faces.”
Intermedia president Linda Benjamin says, “We are pleased that we were able to conclude successful negotiations with the WGA so that we can move forward with our production slate across all media, while being able to provide fair and equitable compensation to the writers now and into the future. In light of this agreement, we will shortly be announcing our updated film and television slate.”
Intermedia Film is a global, independent media enterprise with affiliates in London and Los Angeles organised under Munich-based parent company, IM Internationalmedia AG. The core business of the company consists of the development, financing and distribution of high-quality theatrical films as well as TV productions.
The Film Department is an independent movie finance, production and international sales company founded by former Warner Independent Pictures and Miramax Films president Mark Gill and former Miramax Films EVP and Yari Film Group COO Neil Sacker. With capitalisation of $200 million, the company plans to fully finance and produce six films per year budgeted between $10 and $35 million.
The deal with both companies is similar to agreements the WGA recently reached with Lionsgate, RKO Productions, Marvel Studios, The Weinstein Company, United Artists, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Spyglass Entertainment, MRC, Jackson Bites, Mandate Films and Worldwide Pants.
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.
