Hindi
Wildfire Films launches in Austin
MUMBAI: Wildfire Films, a film production company, has launched in Austin, Texas.
Wildfire Films will now provide full-service development and production for feature films, television and new media. The company will take an active role in the development of the Texas film industry, with productions that will include a number of films that will support the diverse cultures the state offers, said an official release.
Wildfire Films‘ executive team has approximately 25 years of experience in the production of films for Hollywood. Anton Diether is a writer whose miniseries Moby Dick and Cleopatra received two Golden Globe and five Emmy nominations. Mark Hacker has written and been story editor for studios including Warner Brothers, 20th-Century Fox, MTV Films and Paramount Pictures. Leon Rodriguez has over 30 years of production experience for Sony, CBS and BBC, and he recently directed Sony/BMG‘s feature film Double Tap. Jesus Carrera is a production designer, known for his “artistic vision” in films such as 20th-Century Fox‘s Dragonball.
“Wildfire Films possesses the vision and integrity needed to succeed in the film industry. The company has a rich source of creativity and entertainment experience and comprises a proven team of writers and creators with a good sense for business,” said producer Fred Roos.
The company also aims to take an active role in the Texas Motion Picture Association and Austin Producers Association.
“The executives of Wildfire Films have made a commitment to improve the Texas film industry and help build the community they love. By selecting Austin as the location for Wildfire Films productions, the company can create films with a great depth of transparency, which is typically difficult to achieve in Hollywood,” said Starz Entertainment executive director of original series development and production Rob Markovich.
Wildfire is currently co-producing and developing 16 Minutes with Academy Award-winning producer Fred Roos and Overture Films. It is also producing two projects with Humble Journey Films. In addition, Wildfire Films is working on projects with Starz Entertainment, HBO, Creation Studios, NBC, CBS, Troublemaker Studios and Pinewood Studios Group near London.
Wildfire Films was created from four separate film production companies located in both Austin and Los Angeles.
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.
