Hindi
Filmfare (South) Awards on 7 July in Chennai
NEW DELHI: The Idea 59th Idea Filmfare Awards 2011 (South), to be held in Chennai on 7 July, will be based on votes across ten categories in each of the four southern languages: Tamil; Telugu, Malayalam, and Tamil.
The event will take place at the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu, Chennai.
This was announced at a press meet in Hyderabad attended among others by the sensational Rana Daggubati and the charming Deeksha Seth along with Worldwide Media CEO Tarun Rai and Idea Cellular CMO Sashi Shankar.
Over 2500 Black Ladies have been awarded till date. Musical maestro A R Rahman was the recipient of the 2500th Black Lady at the 57th Idea Filmfare Awards (Hindi) held in January this year.
The 59th Idea Filmfare Awards 2011 (South) celebrates the sparkling talent in the Southern film industry and also brings unparalleled entertainment to the audience.
Rai said, “The size and stature of the South Indian film industry never ceases to amaze me. This year, 451 films, across four states, are competing for the coveted Black Lady! It is four times the number of movies that were made in Hindi. The talent in the South is immense and, we at Filmfare are proud that over the last six decades we have celebrated and facilitated this talent.”
The Filmfare Awards (South) were initially held at the prestigious Kalaivanar Arangam in Chennai. Eventually it shifted to the distinctive Music Academy. Initially, only Tamil and Telugu films were considered for the awards and later, Malayalam & Kannada films became part of the event in 1966 and 1969 respectively. The spirit of the awards lies in its popularity not just amongst the masses but also the film fraternity. It is the ultimate recognition of talent.
Worldwide Media is a part of the Times Group, one of India’s largest media and entertainment conglomerates and publishes Filmfare, Femina, BBC TopGear, HELLO! GRAZIA, BBC GoodHomes, Lonely Planet, Home Trends, BBC Knowledge, and BBC GoodFood.
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.
