Hindi
British Film Institute chooses Prime Focus Technologies as preferred supplier
MUMBAI: Prime Focus Limited (PFL) has announced that its subsidiary Prime Focus Technologies Private Limited (PFT) has been chosen by the British Film Institute (BFI) as a preferred supplier of digital services for its film and television archives including scanning and digital restoration services.
Following a tender process that saw bids from 35 suppliers from both the UK and abroad, PFT was selected as one of the specialist companies that the BFI will work with to help preserve and present its archive material.
Commenting on the announcement, PFT vice president and UK head Aine Healy said, “This is just one of many exciting projects that the BFI is working on and we hope that we can continue to grow this relationship. We feel we have the perfect skillset, infrastructure and technology to ensure that the BFI.s archive is readily available for people to enjoy both today and in the future.”
BFI’s head of conservation Charles Fairall averred, “The BFI is charged with the preservation and accessibility of UK’s film and television heritage. We.re very pleased to be partnering with Prime Focus Technologies and our other chosen suppliers, to preserve and open up our archive to new audiences.”
Earlier Prime Focus Technologies had collaborated with the BFI on many high profile projects and has provided its services to other archives including the Imperial War Museum, British Movietone News, IMG, Huntley Archives and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
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.
