Hindi
Nitin Desai to design masterplan of revamped Film City
MUMBAI: Government-owned Film City Studio has roped in art director Nitin Chandrakant Desai to design a masterplan for there development of the studio at Goregaon.
“We had floated a global tender and his company had also filled it. He will be designing the masterplan for the redevelopment of the studio, which will soon be underway,” Film City managing director Shyam Tagde has reportedly said.
Earlier, the film studio had initiated bids from various companies after which some were shortlisted. Among them were Philadelphia-based company Burt Hill, Matt MacDonald, Design Group India, PDA Architects Pvt Ltd, Madhav Consultants Ltd, Nitin Desai‘s Art World Pvt Ltd and Virendra Khanna and Associates.
Further, Desai‘s company was zeroed in and has been asked to start work immediately. The entire facelift of the studio will take place in five stages.
The new-look Film City will include an amusement park, where tourists coming to Mumbai will understand the real essence of the film industry. The changes at Film City will be implemented keeping in mind the convenience of film-makers and entertainment of the tourists.
The revamped film studio will also be opened to tourists. Currently, no tourists are allowed to visit the studio. “Now we intend to follow the functioning of international studios and demarcate areas as tourist zones.”
Film City already has about 16 indoor sets and 40 outdoor locations, including Josh Maidan, Khandala Ghat, Kaalia Maidan, Farishte Maidan, Helipad, Garden, Temple and an artificial lake among many other sets.
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.
