Hindi
Indian films gain prominence at film fests
MUMBAI: The International Film Festival Rotterdam has added two more Indian films in its Bright Future section in the form of Madhuja Mukherjee-directed Carnival and Valley of Saints, directed by Musa Syeed.
Earlier it was announced that Bikas Ranjan Mishra’s short film Dance of Ganesha and Anhey Ghore Da Daan by Gurvindar Singh will be part of the festival’s Bright Future section.
Bright Future is a section to discover fresh new filmmakers.
The festival will be held from 25 January to 5 February.
Meanwhile, Color of Sky directed by Dr. Biju and Autumn (Harud) by Aamir Bashir will feature among the nine titles that will compete in Asia competition of the 30th Fajr International Film Festival to be held in Iran from 1-11 February.
Other films that have been selected for ‘Asia Competition’ are 11 Flowers, directed by Xia oshuai Wang and a co-production of China and France; Addicted to Love directed by Liu Hao from China; Box The Hakamada Case directed by Banmei Takahashi from Japan; Romantic Heaven directed by Jin Jang from South Korea; the China and Hong Kong co-production Chivalry directed by Peter Ho- Sun Chan; Bodyguards and Assassins directed by Teddy Chan again from Hong Kong and China; and In Color of Snow directed by Salim Gones from Turkey.
The Fajr International Film Festival is Iran’s annual film festival held every February in Tehran.
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.
