Hindi
IDFF to show in Mumbai and Delhi
MUMBAI: India‘s only dedicated international digital film festival (IDFF) will now be held in both Mumbai and Delhi. While in Delhi it will be held from 26 January to 1 February, the Mumbai part will be held from 2 to 8 February.
The 2013 edition, would be attended by celebrities like Naseeruddin Shah, Konkana Sen Sharma, Sudhir Mishra, Irrfan, Zoya Akhtar and Imtiaz Ali along with German film director Werner Herzog and independent filmmaker Jason Kliot.
The competition has been classified into four categories: student films, fiction, documentary and digital art and animation, a statement from the organisers of the festival stated. The festival will only accept films shot in the digital format as it supports and helms the new age of filmmaking that IDFF stands for, it added.
Said Festival director Madhureeta Anand, ” IDFF has been a great success in its earlier editions. Last year, we had quality participation from over 60 countries. This time around we are aiming at being even bigger and better and have taken the festival to Mumbai as well. Along with encouraging contemporary filmmaking and modernisation of the creative process, we are keenly looking at involving the audiences in the festival.”
There will also be a Bring Your Own Film corner, a platform where anyone can present his/her film if they manage to raise a crowd of above 30 people.
Over the years, the festival has served as a platform for young amateur and professional filmmakers to showcase their talent among a crowd of film enthusiasts as well as an eminent film jury.
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.
