Hindi
John Abraham to play footballer Sibdas Bhaduri in Shoojit’s next
KOLKATA: Director-cum-producer Shoojit Sircar is all set to make a movie on the life of Sibdas Bhaduri, the man who successfully led Indians against British footballers in 1911. The director has cast John Abraham in the lead role of the period piece ‘1911’ that focuses on Bhaduri, the then captain of Mohun Bagan that won the IFA Shield.
It should be noted that John, a sports fanatic, had earlier played a footballer in 2007 film ‘Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal.’ The pre-production of ‘1911’ has started. “John will essay Bhaduri’s character in the film which will be entirely shot in the Kolkata Maidan area,” said Sircar.
“John is working on the character by reading details on the pre-Independence era football legend,” he added. Bhaduri and his dhoti-clad team had defeated the East Yorkshire Regiment in the IFA Shield final in 1911.
“It will be a sports film with patriotic fervor like the 2007 hit ‘Chak De India’,” said Sircar. “I will do everything to retain authenticity of the period,” said Sircar who has also encouraged John to buy I-league team Lajong FC, besides the Guwahati franchise of ISL.
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.
