Hindi
Indo-Polish bilateral cooperation in film sector
NEW DELHI: India and Poland have agreed to consider an exchange of film festivals to familiarise people in both countries with their movies.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told Polish Culture and National Heritage Minister Bogdan Zdarajewski earlier this week that Indian viewers gave a lot of importance to Polish cinema and an indication of this was the special section on contemporary Polish cinema at the forthcoming International Film Festival of India in Goa commencing on 23 November.
The aim of increasing exchanges would be to diversify the levels of cooperation and exchange in the areas of Film Festivals, and exchange programmes between National Film Schools of both the countries.
Films from Poland will also be screened in “Spotlight on Poland” section and in the “A Cut Above” section.
Regarding the proposed ‘Audio Visual Co-production Agreement’ between the two countries, Soni told the Polish Minister that the due process of Inter Ministerial consultations would be completed shortly.
Both Ministers discussed the possibility of exchange programme between the National Film Schools at Lodz, Poland and the Film and Television Institute of India at Pune and the Satyajit Ray Film and TV Institute in Kolkata. The latter has indicated that it would be interested in entering into an agreement with National Film Schools, Lodz, Poland. The agreement would focus on ‘Student Exchange Programmes’ and ‘Faculty Exchange Programmes’.
Nine films from Poland will be screened at IFFI and Lech Majewski’s film “The Mill and the Cross” was being featured in the international section. Some of the prominent films in the Spotlight Section on Poland include “The Winner” directed by Wieslaw Saniewski, “Heritage” directed by Andrzej Baranski and “The Entanglement” directed by Jacek Bromski.
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.
