Hindi
Drishyam Films to kick-start ‘The Masters’ series with Sriram Raghavan
MUMBAI: Drishyam Films will be hosting screenings and interactions with noted filmmakers, cinematographers, editors and producers titled as The Masters. The monthly series is an effort to give the audiences and film buffs a unique and enriching cinematic experience.
The series will kick-start with the screening of Raman Raghav and will be followed by a master class by director Sriram Raghavan. The two-part made for video series will be introduced by filmmaker and director Atul Sabharwal. The sequence comes from the year 1991 based on the true story of a serial killer. The series will outlay the successful investigations of the Stoneman murders that took place in the 1960s, drawing from official police case files.
The screening will take place on 21 October, 2015 at PVR Citimall Andheri at 8 pm.
“This is a one-of-a-kind initiative by us to reinvent the way master filmmakers interact with their audiences as well as aspiring filmmakers. We are sure that this will be an exciting opportunity for both to have a lively and fruitful exchange every month,” said Drishyam Films CEO Shiladitya Bora.
This is the first theatrical outing of the series, exclusive to early bird registrations. The event will be free and open to all, based on a first-come-first serve basis. The registrations can be made at http://www.drishyamfilms.com/events/.
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.
