Hindi
Om Puri Foundation unveiled in Cannes to help arts, farmers
NEW DELHI: The Om Puri Foundation has been unveiled today at the 70th Cannes Film Festival to carry forward his legacy and the high standards set by him as an actor on films, television and the theater.
Ms Nandita Puri and his son Ishaan were present as the Foundation was unveiled yesterday first at the British Pavilion and later at the Indian Pavilion.
This was followed by a discussion with veteran critic Derek Malcolm, actor-director Nandita Das and actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui along with the Puris, moderated by eminent critic and wrier Uma Da Cunha.
The Foundation aims to take forward Om Puri’s legacy, philosophy and values that he cherished.
Initially, the Foundation will initiate the Om Puri Scholar for the most deserving student from the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, the Om Puri Fellow for the most deserving student from the National School of Drama in Delhi where the actor had his initial training before joining FTII; and the Om Puri Grant for promising and deserving filmmakers to go to international film festivals to broaden their understanding of world cinema.
Ishaan told indiantelevision.com from Cannes that the Foundation intends to take the actors films and work in television to schools, colleges and universities worldwide to keep alive the rich body of his work.
It will also work to take forward a social cause that saddened Om Puri very much – the state of Indian farmers. The Foundation will offer scholarships to deserving children of farmers to pursue their higher studies and thus help farmers to make ends meet.
Recipient of the OBE (Order of the British Empire) and the Padma Shree, Om passed away on 6 January 2017, leaving behind a large body of work that included theatre, television (one of the best being Shyam Benegal’s ‘The Discovery of India), and around 150 films in Hollywood and the United Kingdom apart from India.
Best known for his author-backed roles in early years, he also excelled in comedy as well as action films and was known as the angry young man of art cinema in his early years. His powerful voice has been used to advantage by Shyam Benegal in ‘The Discovery of India” as the narrator apart from his appearance in more than ten different roles in that series, and by many makers of animation films.
He made a mark overseas with ‘East is East’ apart from Richard Attemborough’s ‘Gandhi’ where he had a short but impactful role and then went on to act in more than a dozen films overseas.
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.
