Hindi
Aishwarya Rai, Arjun Rampal and Bipasha Basu to grace Cannes fest
MUMBAI: As in the past, several luminiaries from Bollywood are scheduled to be present at the 65th Cannes International Film Festival to be held from 16 to 27 May. Among the notables would be the likes of Aishwarya Rai, Arjun Rampal and Bipasha Basu.
Rai is most likely to grace the French film festival again this time. She has been attending the festival since 2002 as the global face of L‘Oreal.
Rampal is expected to make an appearance at the Festival as the ambassador of liquor brand Chivas, the official partner of the event. He is likely to be accompanied by his designer friend Rohit Bal. The actor had recently expressed a desire of showcasing his upcoming film Heroine at the Festival.
Directed by Madhur Bhandarkar and co-produced by Ronnie Screwvala and Bhandarkar, the film has Kareena Kapoor and Arjun in the lead roles. Randeep Hooda and Shahana Goswami will also be seen in pivotal roles.
Incidentally, last year the makers had announced Heroine with Rai as the female lead, but she opted out of the film due to her pregnancy. The director then replaced her with Kareena Kapoor.
Bipasha may also attend the festival to promote her debut international film Singularity based on the first Anglo-Maratha war of 18th century colonial India. Directed by Roland Joffe, Singularity has been lined up to be showcased at the Cannes film fest as part of a promotional drive.
Incidentally, the actress had walked the red carpet in 2007 to promote her film Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal along with her co-star John Abraham.
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.
