Hindi
English Vinglish actor Hussain wins award at US fest
Mumbai: Adil Hussain, who has films like Ishqiya, Life of Pi and the recent English Vinglish (as Sri Devi‘s husband) in his kitty, has bagged the best actor award for his role in Unni Vijayan‘s Lessons in Forgetting at the recently held New Jersey Independent South Asian Cine Festival (NJISACF).
The film, that is an adaptation of Anita Nair‘s book by the same name, is a gripping and heartwarming story of redemption, forgiveness and second chances. Meera‘s (Achreja) life is shaken up when her husband walks out on their marriage.
Responsible not just for her children but her mother, grandmother and their rambling old family home in Bangalore, Meera takes up a part time job with Professor J A Krishnamurthy, or JAK, a renowned cyclone studies expert (Hussain).
What she doesn‘t know is that JAK is seeking the truth behind the vicious attack on his 19-year-old daughter, Smriti (Maya Tideman). However, a wall of silence and fear surrounds the incident.
Driven by the need to know the truth he explores the events that lead up to the incident. In the process he gains an insight into his daughter‘s world.
Through a series of coincidences, Meera and JAK find their lives turning and twisting together and as the days pass, fresh beginnings appear where there seemed to be only endings.
Roshni Achreja was feted as best supporting actress for the same film.
The annual NJISACF is held to promote and recognise the talents of the new, the established, the underrepresented, the best and the brightest independent South Asian filmmakers from across the globe.
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.
