Hindi
Centenary Film Festival to feature retro of Ray
MUMBAI: A screening of the silent film ‘Throw of Dice‘ to the accompaniment of live music orchestra by maestro Nishat Khan will mark the opening of a special festival being held next week to mark the centenary of Indian cinema.
A key highlight of the festival includes a special “Satyajit Ray Retrospective” and display the artwork of the cine craftsman of Indian cinema.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari will inaugurate the Festival and also an exhibition on “Indian Cinema 100 (Celebrating a Century: An Audio Visual Voyage)”.
The six-day festival will commence on 25 April and conclude on 30 April with a play on the life and times of Dadasaheb Phalke by Aamir Raza Hussain.
The festival will travel to the Siri Fort auditorium, Jamia Milia Islamia University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and India Habitat Center in an effort to bring it to the doorstep of film lovers in the capital.
The extravaganza will also include screenings of some classics as well as contemporary Indian films by master directors such as Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and others.
The festival will also pay tribute to some of the finest actors of popular Indian cinema, who are no longer alive, through the screening of their films. They include Balraj Sahni, Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor, and Rajesh Khanna among others. The films being screened represent a sprinkling of various flavours of Indian cinema from major film producing regions of the country.
Eminent filmmakers and actors have been invited to interact with the audiences over the course of the six day festival.
Films Division will showcase documentaries which have captured on celluloid post-Independent India in all its myriad perspectives through gems out of its rich archives, such as news reels, documentaries, shorts, features and animation films on diverse subjects.
Another key highlight of the festival is “Cut-Uncut,” a three-day workshop conceived and being executed by members of the Central Board of Film Certification. This event will showcase the growth and evolution of censorship in Indian cinema, through workshops and insightful panel discussions.
The Centenary celebrations would culminate in the National Film Awards ceremony at Vigyan Bhavan on 3 May, including the presentation of the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award to thespian Pran by President Pranab Mukherjee.
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.
