Hindi
Gangs of Wasseypur releasing on 22 June
MUMBAI: Viacom18 Motion Pictures is set to release Gangs of Wasseypur, its co-production venture with Anurag Kashyap, across India on 22 June. The film has already got an ‘A” certificate.
Even though the content of the film is for adults, Kashyap is confident of having a decent audience.
“All films are not for kids. This film is not at all for children. Adult audiences will come to watch it for sure,” he observes.
To be released in two parts, the film, a story spanning three generations from 1941 to 2009, is set against the backdrop of the coal mafia operating in North India.
The first part of the film, which begins at the end of the colonial era in India, follows the story of Shahid Khan who robs British trains in the garb of the legendary Sultana daku. An outcast, Shahid becomes a worker at Ramadhir’s colliery and starts a revenge battle that passes on to generations.
The plot then moves to the end of the decade where Shahid’s son Sardar Khan, whose motto in life is to avenge his father’s honour, makes him the most feared man in Wasseypur. The town, heavily influenced by Bollywood and gun culture, adds quirk to this realistic politival revenge drama.
While the first part of this film of 5 hrs and 20 minutes will release on 22 June, the second part is also expected to release before the year end.
The film was recently screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
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.
