Hindi
Big B to lead Indian film delegation for MIFF
MUMBAI: Legendary actor Amitabh Bachchan will lead the delegation of Indian artistes and filmmakers for the 12th edition of Marrakech International Film Festival, Morocco.
While the exact dates for the event has not been finalised, the festival will be held in November-December.
The list of the attendees to the festival also includes Bachchan’s wife and actress Jaya Bachchan, besides son Abhishek Bachchan and daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
The delegation also boasts of the Khan trio Shah Rukh, Saif and Aamir Khan, former minister and Congress leader Shashi Kapoor, ace film-makers Yash Chopra and Shekhar Kapur, Nandita Das, Preity Zinta and Aparna Sen.
The festival will have events dedicated to Indian cinema including screening of Indian films and felicitation of Indian talent. Every evening the festival will be invited to the Jemaa el-Fnaa Square of the city to watch outdoor screenings of a selection of recent films from India.
The Marrakech International Film Festival held under the patronage King Mohammed VI is run by a foundation headed by Prince Moulay Rachid.
The festival had in the past promoted Indian cinema, which is celebrating its centenary year this year.
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.
