Hindi
Gattu and Don 2 to feature at Berlin Intl fest
MUMBAI: Rajan Khosa’s Gattu has become the second film chosen to be screened at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) in the Generation Kplus segment. Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Don 2 will also feature in the festival.
Produced by the Children Film Society of India (CFSI), Gattu has been acclaimed at other fests too.
The Shah Rukh Khan film will screen for two reasons: the film, being financed by the German government, would attract viewers there; besides, in the process, it would have its German premiere.
A total of 58 short and full-length films from 32 countries have been selected for the Generation Kplus and Generation 14-plus competitions. Two of these films will be screening out of competition.
Members of the International jury are- Scottish documentary filmmaker, Mark Cousins, author and festival programmer, Rasmus Horskj?r from Denmark, film commissioner for children and youth at the Danish Film Institute Frieder Schlaich, German filmmaker cum producer and distributor Marité Ugas from Peru, director of the film El Chico Que Miente, Maxine Williamson from Australia, and artistic director of the Asian Pacific Screen Academy.
The festival will be held from 9-19 February.
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.
