Hindi
Benegal to head Asia Pacific Screen Awards Jury this year
Renowned filmmaker Shyam Benegal, known as one of the pioneers of the art film movement in the country and the launch of serious television series, will Chair the International Jury of the Seventh Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
Speaking at the Busan International Film Festival, APSA executive chairman Michael Hawkins noted that with India celebrating one hundred years of cinema, it was only befitting that the jury be led by a filmmaker of ‘such gravitas’, adding that the work of selection was being undertaken by a ‘remarkable group of eminent filmmakers.
The jury includes the renowned Srilankan filmmaker Malini Fonseka, Turkish actor Tamer Levent, Swiss director Christoph Schaub, Korean screenwriter and director Tae-yong, and Hong Kong producer Albert Lee.
Awards will be presented in six categories at the APSA be held at Brisbane in Australia on 12 December.
Benegal, made his debut with Ankir in 1974 which was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 24th Berlin International Film Festival, won three national awards, and was nominated for the Academy awards.
Since then, Benegal has made 26 feature films which have won him acclaim in India and overseas. He has also won the highest honour in Indian cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for Lifetime Achievement.
In addition, he made the epochal ‘Discovery of India’ series based on the book of that name by India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.
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.
