Hindi
NFDC to manage International Film Festival of India now
MUMBAI: International Film Festival of India (IFFI) will no longer be managed by the Directorate of Film Festivals. The information and broadcasting ministry has reportedly transferred operational responsibilities for IFFI to the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC).
IFFI, which is considered as one of the top 10 film festivals of the world, will be held from 20 to 28 November at Panaji in Goa. Renowned filmmakers Jahnu Barua and Nagesh Kukunoor had been chosen to head the steering and technical committees respectively for IFFI.
Earlier, a 40-member preview committee with Vivek Agnihotri as the convenor has been set up to continue the process of shortlisting of films for IFFI.
Indiantelevision.com had reported that the preview committee for shortlisting films for IFFI which had already seen around 150 films had also been dissolved. These changes have coincided with Smriti Zubin Irani taking on additional charge of the information and broadcasting ministry. The preview committee not merely shortlists films from all entries received, but recommends films for competition section which will then be seen by the International jury, and for the Country Focus section of the Festival.
The NFDC had earlier invited entries for the 11th edition of NFDC Film Bazaar Co-Production Market. The co-production market is for feature film projects with South Asian themes. The regular deadline for the entries is 7 August 2017 but it has been extended to 21 August 2017. The Bazaar will be held from 20 November 2017, the day the festival opens, and close on 24 November 2017.
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.
