Hindi
NFDC Film Bazaar 2013 to kick start on 20 November in Goa
MUMBAI: Film Bazaar- South Asia’s global film market, National Film Development Corporation’s (NFDC) promotional arm, is set to kick start from 20 – 24 November and will be in its seventh edition this year. The film market, like every year, will be held at Marriott Resort, Goa, alongside International Film Festival of India (IFFI).
The market this year will have an eclectic mix of influential people like Christian Jeune- Cannes Film Festival; Thierry Fremaux – Cannes Film Festival; Marco Mueller- Rome Film Festival; Derek Malcolm – British Film Critic and Historian; Chris Paton, Fortissimo; Jacobine Van Der Vloed- Cinemart (Rotterdam); Remi Burah- Arte France Cinema; Sergio Fant –Locarno International Film Festival; Charles Tesson – Semaine De La Critique; Frederic Boyer- Tribeca Film Festival; Anne Delseth- Director’s Fortnight Cannes Film Festival, to name a few.
Film Bazaar this year will launch a new program ‘Producers’ Lab’, which aims at providing training and networking opportunities to upcoming producers from across the country and will also consist of workshop sessions, case studies and one-on-one meetings spread over three days. These sessions will be conducted by well known domestic and international film fraternity.
The ‘Screenwriters’ Lab’, with its six independent screenwriters this year, conducted its first phase of mentored workshop at Toronto International Film Festival and will conclude with its second phase, like every year, at Film Bazaar. Co-production Market finalists comprises an interesting line-up from countries, namely Afghanistan, UK, Canada, Switzerland, Poland, Luthuania, and projects by Govind Nihalani’s A Holy Fire, Shyam Benegal’sRoads To Freedom, Umesh Kulkarni’s Highway, Anup Singh’sA Scorpion’s Song to name a few.
The recently announced ‘Film Bazaar Recommends’ list of films includes Pakistan’s official submission for foreign language film at the 86th Academy Awards- Zinda Bhaag starring Naseeruddin Shah, Jai Ho– A docu-feature based on Indian music composer and singer A.R.Rahman and auteur filmmaker Kamal Swaroop’s Rangbhoomi, amongst other.
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.
