Movies
Kannada film starring Esha Deol enters Oscars race in mainstream awards
NEW DELHI: Though the Marathi film Court by Chaitnya Tamhane has been selected as the official entry for the Best Foreign language film category race in the Academy Awards, south Indian director Kishan Srikkanth’s film Care of Foothpath 2 (Kill them Young) in Kannada starring Esha Deol has made a ‘lateral’ entry.
Srikkanth is known as the boy who features in the Guinness book of records for being the youngest director of a feature film at the age of nine years.
The movie is an action film, based on the story of four slum teenagers who are believed to be criminals. Srikkanth spent two years researching juvenile crime for the movie.
Explaining the ‘lateral’ entry, Srikkanth says that he wants the film to compete in that category so that he can seek awards for technicians and actors, like Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor in a leading role, Best Adaptive Screenplay etc. under the guidelines of Academy Awards.
The film also fulfils intricate technical specifications with regard to the quality of sound, picture, and such other parameters, which they adhered to while shooting the movie. The Academy loves films, which have unique scripts and different and follow high creative standards.
Srikkanth said, “We are thankful to Esha. We approached her for the challenging role of an advocate, who specialises in juvenile crime. She absolutely loved the concept and came onboard. She was so supportive. The film is a sequel to my 2006 film, which deals with juvenile delinquency. We got in touch with the Academy a year and half ago who explained to us that besides our creative script, the strict standards and technical specifications.”
“The film has to be released in the US with all publicity in the mainstream media and get it reviewed and rated. We would be releasing the film in October in Los Angeles, and have earmarked a budget for the same,” he added.
Besides Deol, the film also stars well known TV artiste Avika Gor. Srikkanth hopes that with his film, the flood gates will open for Indian made films in the mainstream category for the Academy Awards.
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.
