Hindi
Medha Shankr receives an IMDb STARmeter Award
Mumbai: IMDb (www.imdb.com), the world’s most popular and authoritative source for information on movies, TV shows, and celebrities, presented an IMDb ‘Breakout Star’ STARmeter Award to 12th Fail star Medha Shankr. The award recognises stars who are strong performers on the Popular Indian Celebrities list on the IMDb app. It charts the page views of the more than 200 million monthly visitors to IMDb worldwide and has proven to be a keenly accurate predictor of stars who are about to have a breakthrough career moment.
Shankr can currently be seen in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s biographical drama film 12th Fail, based on the real-life story of IPS Officer Manoj Kumar Sharma (played by Vikrant Massey) and IRS Officer Shraddha Joshi (played by Shankr). Following the movie’s streaming release, Shankr ranked in the top 10 of the Popular Indian Celebrities list three times in January, including two weeks at the number one spot. 12th Fail currently holds the top spot on the Top 250 list of top-rated Indian movies chart, and an IMDb user rating of 9.1. Shankr’s earlier credits include Dil Bekaraar, Max, Min, and Meowzaki, and Shaadisthan.
“I’m very honored to be receiving the IMDb ‘Breakout Star’ STARmeter Award. This is my first award for 12th Fail, so it’s extremely special, and it’s coming from IMDb, which is the most credible source for movies, so I’m very happy,” said Medha Shankr. “Audience love matters to me the most, and I want to thank my fans for giving me so much of it for this performance.”
“IMDb congratulates Medha for her powerful performance in 12th Fail that captivated global audiences and delighted viewers,” said IMDb India head Yaminie Patodia. “Fans and entertainment professionals around the world have enjoyed learning more about her life and career on IMDb, and we are proud to honor her early and continuing success with this award.”
View Shankr’s award presentation video here. IMDb users can also add web series and films from Shankr’s filmography and other titles to their IMDb Watchlist at imdb.com/watchlist.
Previous IMDb ‘Breakout Star’ STARmeter Award recipients include Bhuvan Arora, Angira Dhar, Adarsh Gourav, Ashley Park, Natasha Bharadwaj, Ayo Edebiri, and Regé-Jean Page. Learn more about IMDb STARmeter Awards at imdb.com/starmeterawards.
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.
