Hindi
Around 25 films including biopic on maestro AR Rahman screened at IFFLA
NEW DELHI: A total of around 25 films including sixteen features – among them the opening film Haraamkhor by Shlok Sharma and several shorts including the acclaimed Jai Ho on maestro AR Rahman by Delhi-based filmmaker Umesh Aggarwal are being screened at the ongoing 13th annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.
The Festival which started on 8 April will go on till 12 April at the ArcLight Hollywood.
Starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, the opening film has been produced by Anurag Kashyap known for many acclaimed films including The Gangs of Wasseypur and Guneet Monga of the Lunchbox fame.
The closing film is Dhanak, a coming-of-age film directed by Nagesh Kukunoor, and the centerpiece film is the British comedy One Crazy Thing directed by Amit Gupta. The movie stars Ray Panthaki and Daisy Bevan and centers on a man struggling to overcome the notoriety from his sex tape.
Actor-producer Abhay Deol has been included in the jury and the other narrative jury members are filmmaker Sean Baker, HFPA member and frequent Board director Yoram Kahana, Warner Bros executive vice president (Physical Production) Ravi Mehta, and author and film curator Berenice Reynaud.
The shorts jury includes actor Danny Pudi, Outfest director of programming Lucy Mukerjee-Brown, Sundance Shorts programmer Lisa Ogdie, and Universal manager of the Emerging Writers Fellowship Heather Morris Washington.
Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s debut feature Labour Of Love following one day in the life of a married couple is also being screened.
Other highlights are Danis Tanovic’s Tigers, Cannes entry Titli by Kanu Behl and the Los Angeles premiere of Miss India America.
The films, including four world premieres, seven North American bows, two American and 10 Los Angeles preems from not just India, but also the US, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Cuba, in 10 languages including English, Spanish and German.
Tanovic’s Tigers stars Emraan Hashmi and is about the true-life tale of the salesman who took on a drug company that marketed a deadly baby formula.
Titli is a coming-of-age story starring Shashank Arora; while Miss India America stars Tiya Sircar (The Internship) and Hannah Simone (New Girl) in the story of a woman who enters a beauty pageant after losing her boyfriend to a former Miss India America.
Apart from the films, there will be an Emerging Writers Program designed to identify and cultivate new and unique voices with a passion for storytelling. Talented screenwriters who have the potential to thrive, but do not have access to or visibility within the industry are taking part. Writers chosen for the programme will work exclusively with the NBC Universal studio for one year to hone their skills.
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.
