Hindi
Choreographer Ganesh Acharya to star as main protagonist in ‘Hey Bro’
NEW DELHI: Veteran choreographer Ganesh Acharya, who has also made occasional appearances in films as an actor, is for the first time playing the protagonist of a Hindi action film, Hey Bro, slated for release this week.
Addressing a press meet, Acharya said, “It’s a comedy film and my I am playing the character of Gopi, who just found out who had a twin brother who was a policeman and the story goes on.”
Directed by Ajay Chandok, the film stars Maninder Singh, Nupur Sharma, and Hanif Lal among others and has been produced by Rahul Mittra.
The film is thus a story about twin brothers with a twist. This is the first time that the audience will see Ganesh as a leading actor and not just a choreographer.
The song ‘Birju’ will see special appearance of various popular faces of Bollywood including Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan, Ajay Devgn and Ranveer Singh amongst others.
“I am very much happy and excited about this movie. I had an amazing experience working with my co-actors and they are very professional, I must say. Hope the movie does well in the theatre,” said Acharya.
Mittra added, “It has different and fresh star cast that will be seen on the screen for the first time. I hope the audience will like the chemistry and the wonderful tracks the movie has.”
The music of the film has been composed by music directors Nitz n Sony, who have experimented with the sound of their music and have not stuck purely to one music genre.
“This is my debut film and I am doing it with so many great people, it’s truly like a dream come true. I always wanted to do roles with all of them and this movie has an amazing star cast,” said Sharma.
The movie is produced by Ganesh Acharya’s wife Vidhi Acharya and written by M.Salim.
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.
