Hindi
Filmmaker Mike Pandey calls for more support to documentaries
NEW DELHI: Eminent filmmaker Mike Pandey, who was awarded the V Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award at the inauguration of the Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, short and animation films, feels a filmmaker‘s role in society is to share information that brings about a change and “that is what I constantly aspire to do through my films”.
Pandey said during a press meet at the MIFF Media Centre in Mumbai today that “Documentary films are the backbone of a country and the Indian documentary film scene is now finally emerging after overcoming a stagnant period”.
He said the government had also realised the importance of documentary films and informed media that a half-hour documentary chunk had been made available on Doordarshan. He said these films need to be supported by the state and central governments, people, as well as media.
Digital technologies had opened a whole new vista of opportunities and had been responsible in broadbasing filmmaking, he said, adding that powerful and informative short films are being made using even the mobile phone camera.
Pandey highlighted the need to make the documentary films entertaining as well, if the viewer‘s interests have to be sustained. He said the docu-drama format has opened many possibilities in this regard, as can be seen from the popularity of the History Channel.
MIFF 2012 Festival Director Shankar Mohan underlined the commitment of the Ministry of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to promote documentary and short films.
He said the Indian section of the competition has been reintroduced at MIFF 2012 to encourage documentary films by Indian film makers. Mohan also informed that the Prize money had been almost doubled.
International Film Festival of India director Mohan has been asked to step in as Director of MIFF as Films Division Chief Producer Bankim Kapadia retired on 31 January.
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.
