Hindi
New face of the 15th edition of the Mumbai Film Festival
MUMBAI: As the Bollywood industry unfolds its dynamism, the 15th edition of the Mumbai Film Festival too, organised by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), and is all geared to sport a revamped look. With a heritage of 100 years and the pace of ever evolving art and industry of cinema, the cultural event eagerly awaited by all has shown tremendous growth in both size and power over the years.
Creating an altogether new visual identity, the festival which is a Reliance Entertainment initiative represents and rebuilds its strong association with the most important centre of the Indian film industry.
The new logo by which the festival will be known is an interpretation of the coveted Golden Gateway Award, the premier award recognising the best film at the festival, to give it a familiar and modern feel. Also the new icon will sport Mumbai‘s historic craft, The Gateway of India in a contemporary and edgy rendition. Broadly representing the particular award categories at the festival and also reflecting the diverse cultural mosaic of the financial capital of India, the international festival‘s new identity will accordingly dazzle with an array of colors.
Filmmaker and chairman of MAMI Shyam Benegal said, “This year we have an exciting new logo that incorporates both the city of Mumbai and the iconic gateway of India.”
Commenting on the new logo, Festival director Srinivasan Narayanan added, “The festival has evolved into one of the most important film festivals in this part of the world, showcasing the best cinema from all over the globe. The new logo stands for the dynamic and fluid integration of the iconic with progress and evolution which I cannot wait to share with the world.”
The 15th Mumbai Film Festival will take place from the 17-24 October 2013.
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.
