Movies
Oddball Motion Pictures gets Rs 250 cr for film production
MUMBAI: Oddball Motion Pictures, founded by filmmaker Nitin Upadhyaya, announced its association with Chanda Group where the latter will be funding a seed capital of up to Rs 250 crore for the feature films and original digital video content that will be exclusively developed and produced by Oddball.
This deal will help the upcoming production house develop feature films, long form and short form content across genres, and over time, a platform of its own.
Speaking on the association, Chanda group managing director Rahul Chanda said, “Indian film & media sector is one of the fastest growing markets and in a country which has an exceptional appetite for information and content, it is about time that this sector is explored as a serious business avenue. This association with Oddball Motion Pictures will help us to power forward in the Industry. They are passionate and developing some great content.”
Upadhyaya said, “All a dream needs is a dreamer. What Chanda group has offered is an unparalleled opportunity to produce and deliver high quality films and world-class entertainment content at an uncompromising scale. Over the past few years a lot of new avenues have cropped up that have taken precedence as the profit centre in the media business than just the classic feature films, an encouraging example being the humongous growth of OTT platforms and content in India. While films will remain our key focus area, we now also plan to expand in the digital domain and venturing into South Indian film industry. We are very thankful for them putting so much trust in a relatively younger organisation like ours and we will forever strive to make them proud.”
This unique collaboration will leverage Upadhyaya’s rich experience in film-making. Under his leadership, Oddball Motion Pictures produced Behen Hogi Teri starring Rajkummar Rao and Shruti Hasan in 2017 and has a great line up of films in 2018. This year it will be producing seven films including the much awaited Emraan Hashmi starrer Captain Nawab. Its slate contains three Hindi and two Marathi films to be released next year.
Chanda group will be exclusively investing in Oddball Motion Pictures for five years, for its developments in the media and entertainment Industry. Its first release will be Gulshan Devaiah, Sagarika Ghatge and Kunal Roy Kapur starrer bilingual thriller Haadsa.
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.
