Hindi
Joker no more a 3D project
MUMBAI: Going back to the original plan to shoot Joker directed by Shirish Kunder in 3D, the makers UTV Movies has decided that the film starring Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha and Minissha Lamba would be in the regular 2D format.
Said Disney UTV Studios MD Siddharth Roy Kapoor, “For a movie featuring a supersta, the draw is more of the star power and the content. We have seen this in case of many films over the past year that have clicked at the BO more for the film itself rather than the incremental business from 3D screens. Given this experience, we took a collective decision with Akshay, Shirish and his wife Farah Khan to complete Joker in the regular 2D format only.”
In 1947 when the maps of India and Pakistan were being drawn, the village of Paglapur didn’t find a place in either country due to an oversight. The village had the distinction of housing the largest mental asylum in the region and in the melee that ensued during partition, the asylum inmates broke loose, drove away the villagers and established their own republic Paglapur.
And that’s how it stayed for the next 60 years! While the world outside changed, Paglapur remained isolated, with no electricity, television or sanity! Now, decades after the world forgot this village, a Nasa scientist of Indian origin, Raj and his wife Manali find themselves on the road to Paglapur. Raj is working on a top secret project for creating a device to communicate with aliens. What ensues forms the crux of the film.
Kunder said, “Initially we had plans to make Joker in the 3D format. But that is not to be. Taking into account the recent responses of 3D movies, we decided to reach out to a wider audience.”
Going by recent performances of our 3D films, the genre has still a long way to go. Even Rakesh Roshan, who had earlier planned to convert Krrish 3 that was shot in the 2D format into 3D, is a little hesitant. “Whether to incorporate 3D or not depends on the length of the film,” he averred.
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.
