Hindi
Goa to build film city within two years: Wagh
PANAJI: Goa is well on its way to building a film city and will be adding at least two multiplexes and a convention centre over the next two years in Panaji which plays host to the International Film Festival of India.
This was announced by Vishnu Surya Wagh, Chairman of the Kala Academy and Vice Chairman of the Entertainment Society of Goa, at the inauguration of the Open Forum at the Festival venue. The Open Forum has been organised by the Federation of Film Societies of India with the Indian Documentaries Producers Association with the cooperation of the IFFI Secretariat and the ESG.
Referring to local criticism about hosting a Festival at a time when the state was facing an economy crunch, he said there was need to develop cinema as an alternate business which could bring in as much revenue as other businesses did.
Wagh, who is an MLA, said the state government was in the process of consulting film personalities to shortlist a suitable place for a film city. He said it was unfortunate that filmmakers who came to Goa to shoot often had to bring their own equipment as there was no infrastructure.
However, he said Goa recently won the Cinemascapes award for the Best Film Destination in India.
Referring to ESG, he said the Society had been set up to facilitate IFFI to hold the Festival here after the decision to make this the permanent venue.
IFFI Director Shankar Mohan said the entire world was moving towards digital technology and therefore some films had been screened only at Kala Academy and it was not possible to re-screen them elsewhere. This had been done to prevent theft of copyright and prevent video piracy. He said 60 per cent of the films here were in DCP, which meant that reels were not available and passwords were needed to screen these films.
He said the Festival this year had seen tremendous vibrancy and a steep jump in the number of delegates. The Open Forum had now moved to a greater purpose and focus. Each section had its own genre, he added.
IDPA President Mike Pandey welcomed the idea of a film city in Goa and said this would help the growth of better cinema.
FFSI President Kiran Shantaram and Sudhir Nandgaonkar also spoke at the forum which will be held daily till 29 November at 1.30 pm in the area outside Inox.
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.
