Hindi
Delegate registrations open for 15th Mumbai Film Festival
MUMBAI: It’s good news for movie lovers. The 15th edition of Mumbai Film Festival is officially open for delegate and media registrations. The iconic film festival which showcases award winning and acclaimed films from all over the globe has announced its online registrations with early bird discounts. The early bird registrations will close at 1900 hours on1 October.
The eight day film festival which will be held from 17-24 October will showcase a stellar lineup of over 200 films from about 60 countries. National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Nariman Point and Metro Cinema are the main festival venues, while Cinemax, Andheri (West) will be the satellite venue.
The registration process for both the delegate and media can be done online on the film festival’s website http://www.mumbaifilmfest.com.
The delegates registering online will subsequently receive a confirmation through an e-mail. This year the festival has made arrangements for sms and e-mail alerts about delegate card pickups, on-line seat reservation system for screenings during the festival and important festival communication for registered delegates.
For any problems related to online registrations, delegates can send an e-mail at registration@mumbaifilmfest.com. The registration form can be downloaded and later submitted along with fees at the Mumbai Film Festival office till 1October, between 11 am to 6 pm.
Delegates must carry their college ID card, film industry card or film society membership cards for verification at the time of catalogue fee payment/collection of delegate cards.
The early bird discounts for various categories of delegates are as under:
1. Students – Rs 600
2. Film industry associations & Film Societies – Rs 750
3. General Delegates – Rs 1150
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.
