Hindi
Nagesh Kukunoor makes a mark with ‘Lakshmi’
MUMBAI: His unprecedented subjects have always enticed the serious movie buffs. However, filmmaker Nagesh Kukunoor’s last few attempts at movie making went awry as he received flak from almost everybody. But his recent attempt with Lakshmi seems to be a comeback of sorts for the director.
Kukunoor’s recent film that is set to hit the theatres on Friday is already getting rave reviews from people who have watched it. The director, who is remembered for films like Hyderabad Blues, 3 Deewarein, Iqbal and Dor, has tried his hand at a topic that is a pressing issue of the time.
Lakshmi starring Monali Thakur, Shefali Shah, Satish Kaushik, Ram Kapoor and Nagesh Kukunoor himself, deals with the harsh realities of human trafficking and child prostitution. He has brought to the fore the issue that continues behind closed curtains in rural areas of India. Interestingly, the film has already won the Best Film – Mercedes Benz Audience Award for Best Narrative at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January this year.
“A gut wrenching story of a 14yr old thrown into human trafficking. The experience is difficult to put into words,” writes a Twitter user.
A well-known film critic posts, “#Lakshmi Outstanding. Better than Teen Deewarein, Iqbal and Dor. Welcome back, Nagesh Kukunoor.”
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.
