Hindi
58th National Film Awards presentation on 9 September
NEW DELHI: The Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the country‘s highest honour in cinema, will be presented to renowned filmmaker K Balachander by President Pratibha Devi Singh Patil at the ceremony to give away the 58th National Film Awards for 2010 on 9 September.
The Malayalam film ‘Adaminte Makan Abu‘ by Salim Ahamed has been chosen the best film while the popular blockbuster ‘Dabangg‘ by Abhinav Singh Kashyap received the award for the best popular film providing wholesome entertainment.
Tamil and Marathi films dominated the awards with 14 and ten awards respectively in the feature film category, with Hindi films getting seven awards, four of which went to ‘Ishqiya‘ by Vishal Bhardwaj: female playback to Rekha Bhardwaj, location sound recording by Kaamod Kharade, re-recordist of final mixed track to Debajit Changmal, and music direction to Vishal Bhardwaj himself.
‘Do dooni chaar‘ by Habib Faisal got the best Hindi film award.
The Indo-Bangladesh venture ‘Moner Manush‘ by Goutam Ghose received two awards: the Nargis Dutt Award for best feature film on National Integration and for Make-up by Vikram Gaikwad.
The best actor award went to Dhanush in the film ‘Andukalam‘ in Tamil and Salim Kumar for the Malayalam film ‘Adaminte Makan Abu‘, while the Best actress award has gone to Mitalee Jagtap for ‘Baboo Band Baaja‘ in Marathi and Saranya Panvannan for the Tamil film ‘Thenmerkku Paruvakkaru‘. The child actor award has gone to four children: Harsh Mayar for ‘I am Kalam‘ in Hindi, Shantanu Ranganekar and Machindra Gadkar in the Marathi film ‘Champion‘, and Vivek Chabukswar for the Marathi ‘Baboo Band Baaja‘. The best supporting awards went to Tamil films: J Thambi Ramaiah for ‘Mynaa‘ and actress Sukumari for ‘Namma Gramam‘.
The best director is Vetrimaran for the Tamil ‘Aadukalam‘ which also got the original screenplay award for him, the editing award for T E Kishore, the choreography award for Dinesh Kumar, and the Special Mention for actor V I S Jayaraman.
Balachander is remembered for his Hindi film ‘Ek Duje ke Liye‘ and Tamil satire ‘Thaneer Thaneer‘. The award is conferred by the Central Government of India for outstanding contribution to the growth and development of Indian Cinema. The award consists of a Swarn Kamal, a cash prize of Rs 1 million, and a shawl.
Balachander has been film director, screenplay writer and producer for more than 45 years. He has written, directed and produced more than 100 films in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Kannada. He is known for his distinct film-making style. The films he scripts and directs analyse unusual or complicated inter-personal relationships and social themes. Balachander has the uncanny knack of spotting talent.
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.
