Hindi
7th Apsara Awards on 25 January
MUMBAI: The year 2012 marks the beginning to the celebrations for the ‘100 years of Indian Cinema’. In its initiative to flag off the centenary celebrations, the Film and Television Producers Guild of India, in association with Wizcraft International Entertainment and Colors, is all set to flag off the ‘event at the 7th Apsara Awards scheduled to take place on 25 January at the Yash Raj Studios.
Announcing the same Film and Television Producers Guild President Ramesh Sippy said, “The Apsara Film & Television Producers Guild Awards is an effort to mark the success of the growing Indian entertainment Industry. We are very excited to honor and felicitate that group of incredible people who have continued to make a significant contribution to this industry. This year too, we hope to inspire and empower achievers from the fraternity, especially with the entertainment industry all set to welcome the 100 years of Indian cinema.”
The event promises to get stronger on its entertainment and celebrity quotient this year reiterating what Apsara Awards stand for. As a special segment of the celebrations, the awards night will showcase a special tribute dedicated to the legends of Indian cinema and their glorious years in Bollywood. A melody of hits will showcase hit songs from the yesteryears and the stars that emulated the iconic on-screen characters.
The Apsara Awards, a joint initiative by the Film & Television Producers Guild and Wizcraft International Entertainment, was instituted to honour exceptional talent and breed new potential within the Film and Television industry.
Averred Guild Sr Vice-President Mukesh Bhatt, “I am extremely delighted to be part of the celebrations marking 100 years of Indian Cinema. The celebrations have only just begun and we look forward to another great year of movies and entertainment.”
The Guild, over half a decade old, consists of more than 160 members who constitute some of the most accomplished and influential luminaries.
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.
