Hindi
Entries invited for NFDC script lab and We Care Film Fest
NEW DELHI: Entries have been invited by the National Film Development Corporation for its script lab and by several Indian film festivals for entries in their respective events being held both this year and the next year.
In its second year, the National script Lab is a long-running script development lab for Indian writers wanting to build and develop screenplays with three residential workshops over five months supported by interim feedback and work via Skype.
Internationally acclaimed mentors will help up to nine selected writers through carefully staged development to prepare their scripts for introduction to the market in India and the rest of the world for financing and co-production.
This year the special focus is on children and youth films. However, the lab will offer places to all genres of film, not exclusively to just children and youth screenplays. Entries with an application fee of Rs 2000 have to be sent by 1 September. Complete applications are to be sent to labs@nfdcindia.com with the first 20 pages of the script along with the application form.
Meanwhile, the country’s first film festival on disability recognized by the United Nations; the We Care Film Fest has invited entries of short films and documentaries in four categories: up to one minute, five minutes, 30 and 60 minutes respectively from across the globe on various disability issues.
The festival is also organising a conference, which will be held from 24 to 26 November, at the Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi.
The event is being organised jointly by UNESCO, the UN Information Centre for India and Bhutan, the Department of Disability Affairs, the Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry, the National Trust, the NGO Brotherhood and the We Care film fest.
The screening of short films and documentaries will follow panel discussion, sharing of success stories by using audio-visual as information, communication and advocacy tools. Though, the last date of submission of short films and documentaries for the We Care Film Fest is 12 December, films received till 31 October on the theme of the conference and on other disability issues will be screened during the conference. The preview committee will select the short films and documentaries for screening.
The third Delhi International Film Festival being held from 20 to 27 December has called for entries by 30 September for full length feature, short films, NRI films, green films (environmental and wild life), student films, animation films, and documentaries. The festival will be held in collaboration with the New Delhi Municipal Committee and Delhi Tourism in Delhi. Details are available on info@delhiinternationalfilmfestival.com and the website: www.delhiinternationalfilmfestival.com
Meanwhile, the Centre for Media Studies Environment has called for entries to its annual eighth edition of CMS Vatavaran: Environment and Wildlife Film Festival and Forum. Films produced on or after 1 January 2015 are accepted in the CMS VATAVARAN 2015 film festival scheduled from 9 to 12 October 2015 at New Delhi. The entry form and guidelines can be downloaded from our website www.cmsvatavaran.org.
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.
