Hindi
New York Indian film fest calls for entries
NEW DELHI: The New York Indian Film Festival has invited entries from Indian filmmakers for features and short films for the 12th Festival to be held from 23 to 27 May.
The entries for the festival, organised annually by the Indo-American Arts Council, will close on 15 February.
NYIFF is an opportunity to experience five days of the rich and diverse film cultures of the Indian subcontinent through a mix of premiere film screenings, discussions, industry panels, script workshops, red carpet galas, special events, nightly networking parties and an award ceremony.
Meanwhile, the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) has invited proposals for documentary films from independent filmmakers for their project with the Public Diplomacy Division of the External Affairs Ministry.
PSBT will commission around seven films under this project. The Films will need to be 26 or 52 minutes duration, shot and post-produced on Full High Definition (1920×1080, 50 mbps).
The average budget for a 26-minute film will be between Rs One Million to Rs 1.2 million and for a 52-minute film between Rs 1.4 million and Rs 1.6 million.
The films are intended to project India’s image to overseas audiences and will, therefore, be approved by the Public Diplomacy Division.
The last date to submit Proposals is 24 February and can be submitted to proposals@psbt.org .
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.
