Hindi
BookMyShow traffic surges to 76% of pre-covid levels with #CinemaIsBack campaign
Mumbai: Entertainment ticket booking portal BookMyShow has witnessed a hockey stick growth in user engagement, traffic and transactions almost nearing pre-covid levels on the platform within just the first ten days of cinemas opening up with a stellar film lineup including Rohit Shetty-helmed “Sooryavanshi,” superstar Rajnikanth’s “Annaatthe,” Marvel’s “Eternals” and Malayali superstar Dulquer Salmaan’s “Kurup.”
Within the first ten days of films releasing pan-India, daily consumer traffic surged to reach 76 per cent of pre-covid levels on an average while user engagement has been steadily rising the charts already surpassing 66 per cent of pre-covid levels on the ticket booking portal. Consumers from Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Ahmedabad have been quickest to return back to the films contributing 48 per cent of the traffic recovery, said BookMyShow in a statement.
The boost to consumer sentiment and its recovery has been driven by BookMyShow’s campaign #CinemaIsBack – a six-month campaign to encourage audiences to relive the magic of the big screen experience all over again, with all safety measures intact. Conceptualised and executed by BookMyShow’s in-house team, the campaign aims to target entertainment-lovers across age groups, geographic restrictions notwithstanding, and social setups through various social media platforms.
“The quirky and nostalgic campaign is a visual, socially engaging and meme-based series executed on digital and social media and will be amplified across BookMyShow’s loyal customer base and potential new audiences both on the platform’s mobile app and website through mailers, push notifications along with social media platforms as also digital media,” said the statement.
Additionally, as a part of the larger #CinemaIsBack campaign, BookMyShow will onboard up to 300 brand advocates to highlight the safety measures being undertaken at the cinemas and the experience of going back to theatres.
“With cinemas opening in India coupled with an exciting line up of big-budget movies that have started to hit the screens from Diwali and for the next six months, we are excited to deliver and communicate an authentic, nostalgic and irreplaceable experience through the #CinemaIsBack campaign,” stated BookMyShow head of marketing Vamsi Murthy. “The success of the campaign within the first 10 days itself has been phenomenal, setting the wheels of the business in motion with a tremendous surge in traffic, user engagement, and ticket sales.”
“Over the next few months, we look forward to welcoming film enthusiasts and cinephiles #BackToTheatres for a safe entertainment experience through this festive season and beyond. We are confident that the stage has been set, for a long-awaited revival of the cinema business in India with all the standard safety protocols in place,” he further said.
The surge in traffic has also provided a fillip to the business with transactions for “Sooryavanshi,” “Annaatthe,” “Eternals,” and “Kurup” skyrocketing towards a complete recovery. The much-awaited “Sooryavanshi” has been making all the right moves as it crossed 2.6 million tickets sold within the first week while “Annaatthe” (Tamil) crossed 1.3 million tickets sold on BookMyShow becoming the first film to hit the million mark on the platform after the second unlock in 2021. Dulquer Salmaan’s “Kurup” clocked a stellar 800,000 plus tickets sold within the first weekend itself.
BookMyShow contributed over 40 per cent of Sooryavanshi’s box office collections in India for the opening weekend with the film hitting a peak of 21 tickets sold per second on 6 November becoming the highest ever peak for a Hindi film on the platform. BookMyShow also clocked a stellar 52 per cent contribution for Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Eternals’ box office collections in India with the film crossing 700,000 tickets sold across languages and versions in 3D, IMAX and 4DX across cities in India on BookMyShow, it said in a statement.
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.
