Hindi
Cinekorn acquires Asia distribution rights of ‘Airlift’ from B4U
MUMBAI: Cinekorn Entertainment has acquired the Asian distribution rights of Akshay Kumar’s new film Airlift from B4U Television, which is the official international distributor of the film.
Produced by Emmay Entertainment, Airlift is based on the true events of the world’s biggest evacuation from Kuwait in 1990. The film released on 22 January, 2016 and Cinekorn Entertainment is distributing the film in all major areas of the continent.
Cinekorn Entertainment’s Kalapi Nagada said, “Asia has always been a splurging market for Hindi Films and the numbers are increasing day by day as more of non ethnic audiences have been getting glued to Hindi films. We have acquired the film from B4U Television, who is the official international distributor of the film Airlift. We are very positive and confident on the film since in the past Akshay Kumar with Singh is Bliing and Baby has become very popular among local audiences. In fact, we plan to go all out in terms of release spread for Airlift from the growing popularity of the past Akshay Kumar films.”
Prior to this, Cinekorn acquired distribution rights for films like Jazbaa, Singh is Bliing, Happy New Year and Haider. These movies were screened in theatres in Sri Lanka, UAE, Malaysia and Singapore.
Directed by Raja Menon, Airlift stars Nimrat Kaur opposite Kumar.
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.
