Hindi
NFDC unveils the 20 films to be screened at Film Bazaar
NEW DELHI: The Film Bazaar, a part of 44th International Film Festival organised by NFDC will showcase twenty Indian and Bangladeshi feature and non-feature films in the Market Recommendation section.
Market Recommendations showcase select films looking for gap finance, distribution partners and world sales.
While The Film Bazaar will be held from 20 to 24 November at Marriott Resort alongside IFFI (International Film Festival of India) that will go on from 20 November to 30 November.
The “Film Bazaar Recommends” Attihannu Mattu Kanaja (Fig Fruit and The Wasps) directed by M S Prakash Babu, Chaurya (Theft) directed by Sameer Patil, Chikka Putta
(Small Things, Big Things) directed by Saumyananda Sahi, Coffee Bloom directed by Manu Warrier, It’s not about the Cycle directed by Achyutanand Dwivedi, Jai Ho – A Film On A R Rahman directed by Umesh Aggarwal, Jayjaykar (Triumph of Life) directed by Shantanu Ganesh Rode, Kutchi Vahan Pani Wala (From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf) directed by Shaina Anand and Ashok Sukumaran, Lajwanti (The Honor Keeper) directed by Pushpender Singh, M Cream directed by Agneya Singh, Margarita, With A Straw directed by Shonali Bose, Mrs. Scooter directed by Shiladitya Moulik, Neelakasham Pachakadal Chuvanna Bhoomi by Sameer Thahir, Rangbhoomi by Kamal Swaroop, That Sinking Feeling by Nandan Saxena, Titli by Kanu Behl, Under Construction by Rubaiyat Hossain, Vees Mhanje Vees (Twenty Means Twenty) by Uday Bhandarkar, Yahaan Sab ki Lagi Hai (Everybody Gets Screwed Here) by Satavisha Bose & Cyrus Khambata, Zinda Bhaag by Meenu and Farjad.
In the meanwhile, NFDC has also announced five projects of its Work-In-Progress Lab programme, of which four are part of the Market Recommendations. The Work-in-Progress Lab gives five filmmakers a chance to have their rough-cut feature length films viewed by a panel of international advisors who have a one-on-one discussion with the filmmaker with an intention to help the filmmaker achieve an accomplished final cut of the film.
Apart from Titli, Margarita, With A Straw, Attihannu Mattu Kanaja, and the Bangladeshi Under Construction, the other finalist in the Lab is Killa by director Avinash Arun in Marathi.
Of the above, Kanu Behl’s Titli produced by Dibakar Banerjee was a part of the sixth edition of NFDC Film Bazaar’s Screenwriters’ Lab and Co-production Market 2012. Yash Raj Films came on board later as a co-producer of the film.
The mentors of the lab this year are: Rome Film Festival artistic director Marco Mueller; British Film Critic and Historian Derek Malcolm; chairman of ADEF and Rezo Films Laurent Danielou; and acclaimed producer and script consultant Philippa Campbell.
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.
