Hindi
‘Guddu Rangeela’ next up from Fox Star Studios
MUMBAI: Fox Star Studios continues its effort to deepen its connect with Indian audiences with a comedy drama Guddu Rangeela.
The movie will bring together director Subhash Kapoor and actor Arshad Warsi of Jolly LLB, a hit courtroom comedy from last year. Production is by Sangeeta Ahir of Mangal Films.
Shooting in Shimla, Ludhiana, Chandigarh and other locations in North India gets underway in March 2014. A theatrical release is targeted in the first quarter of 2015. An ensemble cast also includes actors Amit Sadh (Kai Po Che) and Aditi Rao Hydari (BOSS).
Fox Star Studios is the five-year-old joint venture between 21st Century Fox’s Indian pay-TV market leader Star Television and Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox. With 28 movies (9 Hindi, 4 Tamil, and 15 Hollywood pictures, from Fox and DreamWorks Animation) this year the studio certainly intends to increase its presence in India.
“Jolly LLB, with Arshad and Subhash, was our first independent production and its critical and commercial success has reinforced the fact that our vision to create high concept yet entertaining cinema has found resonance with the audiences worldwide,” said Fox Star Studios CEO Vijay Singh in a prepared statement.
FSS’s Indian slate includes a three movie deal with Vishesh Films, alliances with Pooja Entertainment and Films, Phantom Films, Illuminati Films and a deal with Endemol India to deliver Traffic. Other highlights include Omen Remake, directed by Vishal Mahadkar set for a 14 September release, and Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet set for a Christmas Day 2014 outing.
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.
