Hindi
BIFF to screen Life! Camera Action twice
MUMBAI: The Beloit International Film Festival (BIFF) 2012 will screen director Rohit Gupta‘s internationally acclaimed film ‘Life! Camera Action‘ in the 4-day festival that will start on 16 February.
The BIFFofficial selection has already had one screening on 17 February while the other will be on 18 February.
Life! Camera Action has brilliant performances by Dipti Mehta, Shaheed Woods and Noor Naghmi.
Said BIFF executive director Roddie Beaudoin in a statement, “This year, BIFF will screen a new level of quality of films and present the filmmakers‘ stories in ways that BIFF audiences have not experienced before.”
As per its tradition, the festival is expected to be divided into a series of special events showcasing some of the world‘s finest independent films.
BIFF will emphasise its international dimension with the premier presentation of ‘BIFF Latino,‘ a full-day celebration of Spanish culture including film, food and music at La Casa Grande Saturday on 18 February.
BIFF 2012 is showcasing 140 films in 15 venues in Beloit, Janesville, Wisconsin and for the first time in Rockford.
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.
